The Cultural Politics of Food, Taste, and Identity examines the social, cultural, and political processes that shape the experience of taste. The book positions flavor as involving all the senses, and describes the multiple ways in which taste becomes tied to local, translocal, glocal, and cosmopolitan politics of identity. Global case studies are included from Japan, China, India, Belize, Chile, Guatemala, the United States, France, Italy, Poland and Spain. Chapters examine local responses to industrialized food and the heritage industry, and look at how professional culinary practice has become foundational for local identities. The book also discusses the unfolding construction of "local taste" in the context of sociocultural developments, and addresses how cultural political divides are created between meat consumption and vegetarianism, innovation and tradition, heritage and social class, popular food and authenticity, and street and restaurant food. In addition, contributors discuss how different food products-such as kimchi, quinoa, and Soylent-have entered the international market of industrial and heritage foods, connecting different places and shaping taste and political identities.

"[A] useful and well done collection, serving to outline the nature of an evolving critical pedagogy, while also clearly demonstrating its roots in actual practice and experience." Contemporary Sociology An excellent example of the progress--both conceptual and political--that has been made in our understanding of how education works in an unequal society. . . . An exceptionally valuable book." Michael Apple "All readers who are interested in the possibilities of radical discourse in a conservative time will find relevance in the text and in the excellent, extensive bibliography." Choice

Donna Haraway analyses accounts, narratives, and stories of the creation of nature, living organisms, and cyborgs (cybernetic components); showing how deeply cultural assumptions penetrate into allegedly value-neutral medical research.

At least 200,000 people died from hunger or malnutrition-related diseases in Spain during the 1940s. This book provides a political explanation for the famine and brings together a broad range of academics based in Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia to achieve this. Topics include the political causes of the famine, the physical and social consequences, the ways Spaniards tried to survive, the regime's reluctance to accept international relief, the politics of cooking at a time of famine, and the memory of the famine. The volume challenges the silence and misrepresentation that still surround the famine. It reveals the reality of how people perished in Spain because the Francoist authorities instituted a policy of food self-sufficiency (or autarky): a system of price regulation which placed restrictions on transport as well as food sales. The contributors trace the massive decline in food production which followed, the hoarding which took place on an enormous scale and the vast and deeply iniquitous black market that subsequently flourished at a time when salaries plunged to 50% below their levels in 1936: all contributing factors in the large-scale atrocity explored fully here for the first time.

Reflections on the Puritan Revolution (1986) examines the damage done by the Puritans during the English Civil War, and the enormous artistic losses England suffered from their activities. The Puritans smashed stained glass, monuments, sculpture, brasses in cathedrals and churches; they destroyed organs, dispersed the choirs and the music. They sold the King's art collections, pictures, statues, plate, gems and jewels abroad, and broke up the Coronation regalia. They closed down the theatres and ended Caroline poetry. The greatest composer and most promising scientist of the age were among the many lives lost; and this all besides the ruin of palaces, castles and mansions.

From Revolution to Revolution (1973) examines England, Scotland and Wales from the revolution of 1688 when William became King, to the American Revolution of 1776. In this period lies the roots of modern Britain, as it went from being underdeveloped countries on the fringe of European civilization to a predominating influence in the world. This book examines the union of the island, development of an organized public opinion and national consciousness, as well as Parliament and its factions, the landed and business classes. Views on religion, art, architecture and the changing face of the countryside are also examined, as is the tension between London and the rest of the island. The important issues of colonial expansions in Ireland, America, India and Africa are also analysed.

Cromwell and Communism (1930) examines the English revolution against the absolute monarchy of Charles I. It looks at the economic and social conditions prevailing at the time, the first beginnings of dissent and the religious and political aims of the Parliamentarian side in the revolution and subsequent civil war. The various sects are examined, including the Levellers and their democratic, atheistic and communistic ideals.

Agrarian social movements are at a crossroads. Although these movements have made significant strides in advancing the concept of food sovereignty, the reality is that many of their members remain engaged in environmentally degrading forms of agriculture, and the lands they farm are increasingly unproductive. Whether movement farmers will be able to remain living on the land, and dedicated to alternative agricultural practices, is a pressing question. The Political Ecology of Education examines the opportunities for and constraints on advancing food sovereignty in the 17 de Abril settlement, a community born out of a massacre of landless Brazilian workers in 1996. Based on immersive fieldwork over the course of seven years, David Meek makes the provocative argument that critical forms of food systems education are integral to agrarian social movements' survival. While the need for critical approaches is especially immediate in the Amazon, Meek's study speaks to the burgeoning attention to food systems education at various educational levels worldwide, from primary to postgraduate programs. His book calls us to rethink the politics of the possible within these pedagogies.

Institutions like schools, hospitals, and universities are not well known for having quality, healthy food. In fact, institutional food often embodies many of the worst traits of our industrialized food system, with long supply chains that are rife with environmental and social problems and growing market concentration in many stages of food production and distribution. Recently, however, non-profit organizations, government agencies, university research institutes, and activists have partnered with institutions to experiment with a wide range of more ethical and sustainable models for food purchasing, also known as values-based procurement. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers brings together in-depth case studies from several of promising models of institutional food purchasing that aim to be more sustainable, healthy, equitable, and local. With chapters written by a diverse set of authors, including leaders in the food movement and policy researchers, this book: Documents growing interest among non-profit organizations and activists in institutional food interventions through case studies and first-hand experiences; Highlights emerging evidence about how these new procurement models affect agro-food supply chains; and Examines the role of policy and regional or geographic identity in promoting food systems change. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers makes the case that institutions can use their budgets to change the food system for the better, although significant challenges remain. It is a must read for food systems practitioners, food chain researchers, and foodservice professionals interested in values-based procurement.

This unique and insightful book provides a comprehensive examination of contemporary cultural policy and its discourses, influences, and consequences. It examines the factors that have led to a narrowing of cultural policy and suggests new ways of thinking about cultural policy beyond economics by reconnecting it with the practices of work, value, and the social. With a particular focus on Australia and the UK, and with reference to transnational bodies including UNESCO, this book identifies and examines influential national and international factors that have shaped cultural policy, including its implementation of an economic agenda. Deborah Stevenson retraces the foundations of contemporary cultural policy, with chapters exploring the hierarchies of legitimacy that form the basis of value and excellence, the increased hegemony of the economy within the art world complex, and the notions of class and gender as two key factors of social inequality that shape access to the arts. Analysing cultural value, work, and the social as important points of tension and potential disruption within contemporary cultural policy, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of arts and cultural management, cultural policy studies, cultural sociology, economics, and leisure and urban studies. It will also be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners across the humanities and the social sciences.

What is milk? Who is it for, and what work does it do? This collection of articles bring together an exciting group of the world's leading scholars from different disciplines to provide commentaries on multiple facets of the production, consumption, understanding and impact of milk on society. The book frames the emerging global discussion around philosophical and critical theoretical engagements with milk. In so doing, various chapters bring into consideration an awareness of animals, an aspect which has not yet been incorporated in these debates within these disciplines so far. This brand new research from scholars includes writing from an array of perspectives, including jurisprudence, food law, history, geography, art theory, and gender studies. It will be of use to professionals and researchers in such disciplines as anthropology, visual culture, cultural studies, development studies, food studies, environment studies, critical animal studies, and gender studies.

In her new book, Corine Pelluchon argues that the dichotomy between nature and culture privileges the latter. She laments that the political system protects the sovereignty of the human and leaves them immune to impending environmental disaster. Using the phenomenological writings of French philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur, Pelluchon contends that human beings have to recognise humanity's dependence upon the natural world for survival and adopt a new philosophy of existence that advocates for animal welfare and ecological preservation. In an extension of Heidegger's ontology of concern, Pelluchon declares that this dependence is not negative or a sign of weakness. She argues instead, that we are nourished by the natural world and that the very idea of nourishment contains an element of pleasure. This sustenance comforts humans and gives their lives taste. Pelluchon's new philosophy claims then, that eating has an affective, social and cultural dimension, but that most importantly it is a political act. It solidifies the eternal link between human beings and animals, and warns that the human consumption of animals and other natural resources impacts upon humanity's future.