Food and Place

This is not a dry weighty compendium intended to be memorized and regurgitated at exam time. It is provocative and engaging reading offering fresh perspectives on the food challenges encountered in everyday life today…. Most engaging are the “food for thought” segments between chapters, which allow the reader to “digest” the material through reflection, activities, and recipes intended to get the reader out in the community as a participant-observer or in the kitchen as a critically aware cook…. In sum, Food and Place: A Critical Exploration is not only a fascinating college textbook, which, in this case, is not an oxymoron. But also it will resonate with the general public interested in provocative contemporary questions such as: Why don’t we eat dogs? Does your neighborhood make you fat? Do community gardens encourage urban gentrification? Can cheese save a local economy? Is the kitchen an oppressive place? * New York Journal of Books *
This exciting and expansive book convincingly argues that place is an essential lens through which to view all aspects of the food system, from bodies to landscapes to global economic flows. It is essential reading for scholars, students, activists, and policy makers working to create a more just and sustainable food system. – Alison Alkon, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the Pacific
Across the globe, how are food practices, from production to consumption, shaped by the spaces in which they occur, and, in turn, how do they transform places and contribute to place-making? This thoroughly engaging critical analysis takes us from GMOs to gentrification and from bio-politics to body politics, making it a must read for activists and academics alike. – Julian Agyeman, Tufts University
Offering students lucid explanations of key concepts, this collection is an excellent introduction to today’s food and farming issues. Drawing on the latest research from multiple disciplines, the authors cover the central debates in areas such as ethical eating, social policy, and food politics. Students will come away with a deeper understanding of the spatiality of food practices, the ways food makes place, and how relations of power—race, gender, class—always shape these geographies. – Rachel Slocum, SIT Graduate Institute
Food systems are as dynamic as the global economy they have developed within. Because of this, we require vigilant and far-reaching analyses of the changes within food systems and how, in turn, these place-based changes disrupt people’s lives. This excellent book, including some of today’s most important scholars of food and place, does just this. – Nik Heynen, University of Georgia
Food and Place is a powerful collection of essays that explores the intimate relationships between what we eat and where we live—and how those relationships shape individual and geographic identities. Joassart-Marcelli and Bosco link global industrial food regimes to the landscapes they produce and the cultural meanings inherent in the food people ultimately consume. Their through-line is justice: for immigrant pickers and slaughterhouse workers, for urban communities facing food insecurity, and for diverse individuals confronting exclusionary food cultures. This is an important book for anyone interested in the critical role of food in our lives, livelihoods, and environments. – Jennifer Wolch, University of California, Berkeley

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli is professor of geography and director of the urban studies program at San Diego State University. Fernando J. Bosco is professor of geography and graduate advisor for the doctoral program in geography at San Diego State University.

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