Rethinking food regime analysis: an essay on the temporal, spatial and scalar dimensions of the first food regime

Abstract

This paper argues for the reconceptualisation of the first food regime. First, it situates the origin of the first food regime in 1846 with the repeal of the Corn Laws. Second, it suggests that the concept must be extended to other ‘moments’ of the circuit of capital. Third, it argues for a scalar shift in order to take into account national and subnational processes and dynamics. Problematising working conditions in the British baking industry c. 1830–1914, I demonstrate how relations of distribution were embedded in global value relations essential to the articulation and deployment of the first food regime.

Keywords:

• distribution
• political economy
• labour
• food regime

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Marcus Taylor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Sébastien Rioux

Sébastien Rioux is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Université de Montréal, Canada, and Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Food and Wellbeing.