Widening the Circle: Racialized Immigrants in Toronto's Alternative Food Movement

Toronto is a growing site for the alternative food movement with plenty of innovative projects. While the alternative food movement may emphasize the participation of diverse members and communities some observers have noticed the underrepresentation of immigrants and visible minorities within the movement. As Toronto increasingly acts as an immigration hub, it becomes critical to create room for diverse and marginalized voices in food spaces. This major research paper will reflect findings from interviews with five food leaders in Toronto involved in food justice and food security initiatives while using critical whiteness theory and critical race theory to deconstruct the complexities which surround the needs and visions of immigrants and visible minorities. Findings reveal that when the voices of immigrants and visible minorities are recognized in the food movement, there is work to be done in improving accessibility, inclusivity and collaboration of the movement.

Widening the Circle: Racialized Immigrants in Toronto's Alternative Food Movement

Toronto is a growing site for the alternative food movement with plenty of innovative projects. While the alternative food movement may emphasize the participation of diverse members and communities some observers have noticed the underrepresentation of immigrants and visible minorities within the movement. As Toronto increasingly acts as an immigration hub, it becomes critical to create room for diverse and marginalized voices in food spaces. This major research paper will reflect findings from interviews with five food leaders in Toronto involved in food justice and food security initiatives while using critical whiteness theory and critical race theory to deconstruct the complexities which surround the needs and visions of immigrants and visible minorities. Findings reveal that when the voices of immigrants and visible minorities are recognized in the food movement, there is work to be done in improving accessibility, inclusivity and collaboration of the movement.

Sustainable Halal? The Intersection of Halal, Organic and Genetically Engineered Food in Turkey

Despite standardization initiatives among states, businesses and non-profit agencies, the understanding and practice of halal requirements vary. This fragmentation of halal certification is particularly significant in terms of genetically engineered food. Studies in both global North and South show that women consumers are more concerned about food choices. This paper examines the convergence of halal and organic through genetically engineered food with recourse to women consumers’ definitions of ‘wholesome food’ in Turkey. Using data from a total 13 focus groups carried in the cities of Ankara and Konya in the summer of 2015, and in the cities of Ankara and Balikesir in the summer of 2019, the paper examines the concerns of women consumers about food in a Muslim majority country fully integrated into globalized markets. It also questions how women consumers negotiate their food choices particularly in relation to genetically engineered food, halal and organic food. The paper argues that both secular and devout Muslim women consumers as mothers have growing concerns in feeding their family with clean and healthy food. However, halal certified food does not address their expectations about ‘wholesome food’. The discussions about the convergence of halal, organic and genetically engineered food highlight the tensions in the alternative food movement about what clean and good food look like.

‘Workable utopias’ for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation

The focus of this article is community supported agriculture (CSA) as an alternative food movement and a bottom-up response to the problems of the dominant food systems. By utilizing social innovation approach that explores the relationship between causes for human needs and emergence of socially innovative food initiatives, the article examines how the CSA projects emerge and why, what is their innovative role as part of the social economy and what is their transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four different models of CSA case studies in different regions of Wales, UK, and by using concepts from an alternative model for social innovation (ALMOLIN) as analytical tool, the article demonstrates that the Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles as part of the social economy. They satisfy the needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food, grown within communities of like-minded people and they empower individuals and communities at micro level, while at the same time experiment with how to be economically sustainable and resilient on a small scale. The paper argues that in order to become ‘workable utopias’, the CSA initiatives need to overcome the barriers that prevent them from replicating, participating in policies and decision-making at macro level, and scaling up.

Who Speaks for (and Feeds) the Community? Competing Definitions of “Community” in the Austin, TX, Urban Farm Debate

Alternative food supporters claim that food produced outside the corporate system can improve the wellbeing of communities. A closer look at these claims raises the question: How are members of the alternative food movement defining “community” and who is being included in and excluded from these definitions? We draw from in–depth interviews with (1) urban famers and their supporters and (2) neighborhood members of gentrifying East Austin to examine irreconcilable disputes on the process of rewriting Austin's urban farm code. We use Stanley Fish's concept of “interpretive communities” to understand competing definitions of “community” and theorize beyond this point by noting that when communities feel at threat, they come together as coalesced communities to gain support for their stance. The discussions in this paper can be situated within dialogues of critical geography, gentrification, alternative foodways, and public health to show how class, race, and ethnicity remain tied to environmental justice.

Agriculture and Asian American Literature

Agriculture is a significant yet understudied theme in Asian American literature. Representations of farming in Asian American literature often respond to and engage with agriculture’s important role in Asian American history. As farmers and as farm laborers, Asian Americans have been pivotal to US agriculture, and this agricultural experience was foundational to the formation of Asian American communities in the period prior to World War II. Additionally, literary representations of agriculture in Asian American literature navigate racialized traditions of American pastoral and Jeffersonian agrarianism. They have often done so in ways that highlight the systems of racial and economic exploitation at work in US society and position US agribusiness in relationship to US colonialism and neo-colonialism. Consequently, Asian American literature’s representations of farming can expose the assumptions around race, property, and citizenship at work in the agrarianism of the 21st-century US alternative food movement. The writings of Carlos Bulosan, Hisaye Yamamoto, and David Mas Masumoto provide case studies of these trends.

Race, Four Farms, and a City: Color Blindness and the Austin, TX, Urban Farm Debate

Austin, TX, was the site of a three-year debate between urban farmers and their supporters and local community activists about how to rewrite an outdated farm code. There was tremendous animosity between the two groups and, despite efforts at mediation, the two sides were unable to reach compromise. To understand more about how these two groups came into conflict, we interviewed 26 local stakeholders about their views and experiences during the farm code debate and found that issues of race and racial inequality were a key factor in the continuing mistrust. We found that farmers and their supporters attempted to frame the debate and its racial undertones by highlighting their racial–ethnic minority supporters, describing their businesses as reclaiming East Austin’s agricultural past, and arguing that the only issue that should matter in redrawing the farm ordinance should be how to best help farmers provide healthy food to the community. We argue that the farmers’ responses draw from a discourse of whiteness and color blindness that can be harmful to People of Color and link their views to larger critiques that the alternative food movement and individual alternative food projects can be exclusionary.

Food Movements Oscillating Between Autonomy and Co-Production of Public Policies in the City of Madrid

In the aftermath of the economic crisis in the city of Madrid, food geography transformed. The urban unemployed began to engage in agriculture in periurban areas, creating new alliances between producers and consumers. Over a period of 15 years the alternative food movement organized on the fringe gave way to agroecological civic platforms that are highly assertive, and a dialogue with political institutions has opened. A key moment in the advance of this proactive attitude came about in the municipal elections of May 2015. Activists ascended to positions of political power and the backdrop of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, created an opportunity for the food movement to move from protest to program, and public policies permeated by agroecological principles.

Contending the Rural: Food Commodities and Regimes of Value in Contemporary China

This article examines how commodity status is achieved and how value is articulated across three food provisioning practices and ideologies in China: nationally certified food, local government-sponsored organic food near Shanghai, and an alternative food movement comprising small-scale and independent organic farmers in Shanghai and the surrounding countryside. Understanding value across these three cases requires asking how the social relations of production and the rural labor involved in domestic food production are rendered visible, or not, to urban shoppers. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork as well as on work experiences with transnational food corporations in China, this article illustrates that government initiatives alienate rural labor in an effort partially designed to manage social harmony, while independent organic farmers “bring the rural back.” This analysis adds to our understanding of urban/rural relations in China today. It also shows that for alternative notions of value to flourish, gifts may intentionally moonlight as commodities.