Saving Food: Food Preservation as Alternative Food Activism

Abstract

The renewed interest in sustainable agriculture suggests we are in the midst of a food revolution. However, food movements’ focus on individual, instead of collective, action has opened food activism to critiques that it is too focused on consumer politics and lacks the force necessary to make substantive changes in the global food system (e.g., Delind, 2006; Hassanein, 2003). Our examination of the practices of and motivations for food preservation, using survey and interview data, reveals that food preservation presents an opportunity to move alternative food practices away from an individualistic, consumer-oriented politics to a politics based upon relationships to self, others, and the earth, enabling activists to connect more deeply to the goals of food movements. Unlike the dominant discourses of food movements, which encourage an individualistic, consumer-oriented politics, food preservation emphasizes connection and relationships and thus has the potential to subvert the capitalistic logic of the global agro-food industry.

Keywords:

• Food Preservation
• Food Movements
• Activism
• Home Canning
• Consumerism
• Cultural Studies

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa A. Click

Melissa A. Click, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at University of Missouri

Ronit Ridberg

Ronit Ridberg is a M.S. candidate in the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, Tufts University