This award to Dr. Melissa L. Caldwell (University of California, Santa Cruz) provides support for the international workshop to be held in collaboration with the Food Studies Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). Issues of ethical food consumption, including food safety, consumer health, and the dynamics of macroeconomic policy effects on global food systems, are critically important for scholars, policy makers, farmers, producers, and consumers. By focusing on these topics in late socialist and formerly socialist societies, this workshop will provide new contexts for examining the interplay among market values, moral values, and other factors influencing food movements in emerging capitalist systems. The workshop also will consider the connections among political regimes, producers, and international trade regimes, and it will examine the effects of global regulatory regimes as well as more locally oriented food movements on local consumers.
This workshop brings together, for the first time, leading international researchers in anthropology, sociology, geography, and environmental studies to share research on ethical food movements and consumption across a diverse cross-section of previously communist countries in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Africa, and market-oriented communist states such as China, Vietnam, and Cuba. Topics to be examined include: production of economic moralities through different economic global processes; food and farming as forms of resistance and critiques; models of health and civil society; supply and demand relationships outside formal market economy systems; national and international food safety policies; consequences of global governance systems; and models of sustainable development and environmentalism. A variety of ethnographically based qualitative and quantitative field data will be discussed at the workshop.
This workshop is important because it will present research findings on the complexities of the contemporary global food system, with special attention to relationships between state, industry, and international trade within specific forms of governance, and their impact on citizen-consumers throughout the world. The workshop also supports international research collaboration and the mentoring of junior researchers and graduate students.
" that was held May 12-13, 2011, at SOAS Food Studies Centre, University of London; (2) a follow-up editorial meeting in October 2011 of the PI, Co-PI, and Dr. Jakob Klein, the SOAS organizer and participant, to review revised papers presented by workshop presenters and prepare comments and directives for continued resaerch and revision in anticipation of the creation of an edited volume; and (3) compilation of an edited volume and preparation of this manuscript for peer review and pending publication. (1) The workshop was held in May 2011 and convened 18 anthropologists, qualitative sociologists, and cultural geographers who are conducting innovative and transformative ethnographic research on emerging ethical food movements across the postsocialist world. Participants presented article manuscripts for discussion and debate, and discussants provided commentary and suggestions for developing the manuscripts. While each presenter in this workshop focused on a different type of ethical food movement -- vegetarianism, food heritage social activism, locavorism, civic garden initiatives, etc. -- collectively, the participants compared the development and impact of socialism and postsocialism on emerging capitalist food practices. These debates and discussions provided original ethnographic insights into the complexities of the contemporary global food system in a different capitalist economy, thereby contributing to current theoretical discussions in anthropology, sociology, and geography on the relationship between market values and moral values within expanding capitalist systems, the relationship between state, industry, and international trade regimes within neoliberal forms of governance, and their impact on citizens, global discourses concerning environment, sustainable development, and livelihoods, and the usefulness of postsocialism as an analytical tool for considering agricultural transition. (2) At the October 2011 editorial meeting, the PI, co-PI, and Dr. Klein prepared a bookprospectus for an edited volume from the May workshop, vetted and edited manuscripts for the volume, and met with prospective publishers. (3) The proposal for the edited volume was accepted by the University of California Press and a publication contract was issued. The final manuscript is currently under peer review through UCP and is slated for final approval by the Editorial Committee at its May 2013 meeting. The volume is scheduled for publication in early spring 2014. Additional outcomes included: (1) Training and Development: This project provided important mentoring and professionalization opportunities to several advanced graduate students who were participants in the workshop. These participants received careful feedback on their research and publications-in-progress from senior scholars in the field and were given the opportunity to present their work in an international forum. Two graduate assistants were given the opportunity to develop their professional skills in working with other scholars and providing research support to the scholars and editorial support to the workshop organizers (PI, Co-PI, and Dr. Klein), who are coordinating the edited volume resulting from this workshop. (2) Publication Mentoring: Participants in the workshop have received extensive mentoring in scholarly publishing, with feedback from the PI, co-PI, and co-organizer focusing on such aspects as presentation of scholarly data and arguments, publishing requirements, and publishing processes. Participants have also benefited from professional contacts with publishers. (3) Public Outreach: The workshop was open to the public, and the papers that were presented have been made available on request.
