Abstract
It is easy enough to think about preparing food, growing food, and eating food as straight-forward affairs, or mere biological necessities. However, these processes are wrapped up in social relations, personal identities, and political power. Broadly critical frameworks can help pull apart the varying dimensions in this complex and dynamic relationship in order to provide guidance for reforming our relationship to the food we consume in a more democratic and participatory direction. To that end, we explore the normative implications of the current organization of the world food system from multiple perspectives in critical theory, the philosophy of science, and political philosophy. We offer ethical and political analyses at the levels of community activism, national food policy, and global consumerist capitalism to show how an approach that sees these multiple levels as interactive can provide concrete reasons for supporting certain effective solutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bordieu, P. (1984). Distinctions: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Routledge, London, UK.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2011). CDC estimates of foodborne illness in the United States. Available at: www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/2011-methods.html.
Dahlberg, K.A. (1993). Regenerative food systems: broadening the scope and agenda of sustainability. In: Allen, P. (ed.) Food for the future: conditions and contradictions of sustainability. Wiley, New York, NY, USA.
DeLind, L.B. (2011). Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars? Agriculture and Human Values 28: 273–283.
Delind, L.B. and Howard, P.H. (2008). Safe at any scale? Food scares, food regulation, and scaled alternatives. Agriculture and Human Values 25: 301–317.
Desmarais, A.A. (2008). The power of peasants: reflections on the meanings of La VÃa Campesina. Journal of Rural Studies 24: 138–149.
Douglas, H. (2009). Science, policy, and the value-free ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. (1996). The world of goods: towards an anthropology of consumption. Routledge, New York, NY, USA.
Fiorino, D. (1990). Citizen participation and environmental risk: a survey of institutional mechanisms. Science, Technology, and Human Values 15: 226–243.
Flora, C.B. (2011). Review: Schanbacher, W.D.: The politics of food: the global conflict between food security and food sovereignty. Journal of Agriculture and Environment Ethics 24: 545–547.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2003). Trade reforms and food security: conceptualizing the linkages. FAO, Rome, Italy.
Food and Drug Administration (2011). Background on the FDA food safety modernization act. Available at: www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm239907.htm.
Guston, D. (2000). Between politics and science: assuring the integrity and productivity of research. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Guthman, J. (2004). Agrarian dreams: the paradox of organic farming in California. University California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Harding, S. (2008). Sciences from below: feminisms, postcolonialities, and modernities. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA.
Hassanein, N. (2011). Matters of scale and the politics of the food safety modernization act. Agriculture and Human Values 28(4): 577–581.
Heffernan, W. (1999). Consolidation in the food and agriculture system. Report to the National Farmers Union. National Farmers Union, Denver, CO, USA
Hrding, S. (2004). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is ‘strong objectivity? In: Harding, S. (ed.) The feminist standpoint theory reader: intellectual and political controversies. Routledge, New York, NY, USA.
Izberk- Bilgin, E. (2010). An interdisciplinary review of resistance to consumption: Consumer movements, activism, and ideology. Consumption Markets and Culture 13(3): 299–325.
Kuzma, J. and Meghani, Z. (2009). The public option. EMBO Reports 10(12): 1288–1293.
Lyson, T.A. (2004). Civic agriculture: reconnecting farm, food, and community. Tufts University Press, Medford, MA, USA.
Mitchell, S. (2009). The corporate co-opt of local. The wire. Available at: www.wirenh.com/Features/Features_general/the_corporate_coopt_of_local_200.
Mount, P. (2012). Growing local food: Scale and local food systems governance. Agriculture and Human Values 29(1): 107–121.
Pollan, M. (2009). A defense of food: an eater’s manifesto. Penguin Press, New York, NY, USA.
Pollan, M. (2010). The food movement, rising. The New York Review of Books, June.
Pollan, M. (2011). Food rules: an eater’s manual. Penguin Press, New York, NY, USA.
Rittel, H. and Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4: 155–169.
Roberts, T. (2007). Willingness to pay estimates of the societal costs of US food-borne illness. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 89(5): 1183–1188.
Schanbacher, W. (2010). The politics of food: the global conflict between food security and food sovereignty. Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Schrader-Frechette, K. (1991). Risk and rationality: philosophical foundations for populist reforms. University California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Ulver-Sneistrup, S., Akergaard, S. and Kristensen, D.B. (2011). The new work ethics of consumption and the paradox of mundane brand resistance. Journal of Consumer Culture 11(2): 215–238.
Whittman, H. (2010). Food sovereignty: reconnecting food, nature, and community. Food First Books, Oakland, CA, USA.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Wageningen Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Beck, D., Ivanovic, M., Noll, S., Werkheiser, I. (2013). The ethics of consuming: community, agency, and participation in global food systems. In: Röcklinsberg, H., Sandin, P. (eds) The ethics of consumption. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen. https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-784-4_70
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-784-4_70
Publisher Name: Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen
Online ISBN: 978-90-8686-784-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)