Food, Culture, and Power

Food, Culture, and Power investigates the contemporary global food system in the context of 300,000 years of human experiences. Every morsel contains multitudes: ecological conditions, economic exchange, gendered and racialized work, historical relations influenced by colonialism and capitalism, and the culturally variable search for a good meal. In bridging cultural, political, economic, and ecological perspectives on food systems, this book illuminates the systems of power—and profound inequality—that animate our meals. Divided into three parts, this text begins with domestication and the origins of agriculture. The second unit introduces food and farming in the global economy, tracing the impacts of colonialism and plantations, capitalism through commodity chains, and the shift toward industrialized food. Given this context, the book concludes by imagining the future of food and farming, asking for whom that future is built, and exploring the many alternatives that already exist across our food and agriculture systems. This holistic book is the perfect text for grappling with the world we’ve inherited and thinking about the foods and farms to come.