Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape

Description:

At a time when the relationship between 'the country' and 'the city' is in flux worldwide, the value and meanings of food associated with both places continue to be debated. Building upon the foundation of Raymond Williams' classic work, The Country and the City, this volume examines how conceptions of the country and the city invoked in relation to food not only reflect their changing relationship but have also been used to alter the very dynamics through which countryside and cities, and the food grown and eaten within them, are produced and sustained.

Leading scholars in the study of food offer ethnographic studies of peasant homesteads, family farms, community gardens, state food industries, transnational supermarkets, planning offices, tourist boards, and government ministries in locales across the globe. This fascinating collection provides vital new insight into the contested dynamics of food and will be key reading for upper-level students and scholars of food studies, anthropology, history and geography.

Brief description: José Manuel Sobral was Assistant Professor of History at the Universidade de Lisboa where he taught European Medieval History and Portuguese Contemporary History from 1977-1984, and is now Senior Research Fellow at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, where he is currently the Director of the PhD Program in Social Anthropology. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa in Lisbon in 1993, with a doctoral thesis focusing on the historical and social configuration of a Portuguese rural parish. Although remaining interested in the study of the structures of rural society-mainly through the lens of landownership, family, marriage and inheritance, class, power and conflict-he moved on to research on nationalism, ethnicity and racism, working on several subjects in these fields, including theories of nationalism, Portuguese national identity in a comparative perspective, definitions of Portuguese ethnicity, the national identity of black immigrants from the former Portuguese colonies, and racism and discrimination towards Roma citizens and immigrants. His major published works include a book based on his doctoral thesis, Trajectos. O Presente e o Passado na Vida de uma Freguesia da Beira (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, Lisboa, 1999); and an essay on Portuguese national identity entitled, Portugal, Portugueses: uma identidade nacional (Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, Lisboa, 2012). More recently he has conducted research on the anthropology of food, linking this subject to his interests on the study of Portuguese social structures, nationalism and ethnicity. His publications in this area include: José Manuel Sobral, 'Nacionalismo, Culinária e Classe: a Cozinha Portuguesa da Obscuridade à Consagração (séculos XIX-XX)', Ruris (Revista do Centro de Estudos Rurais, Universidade de Campinas, Brasil) Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 13-52, 2007; José Manuel Sobral, 'Cozinha, Nacionalismo e Cosmopolitismo em Portugal (séculos XIX-XX)', in Villaverde, M., Wall, K., Aboim, S. and Silva, F. (eds.), Itinerários: A Investigação nos 25 Anos do ICS (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, Lisboa, 2008), pp. 99-123); and José Manuel Sobral and Mónica Truninger, 'Contested Food Authenticities: A review of consumers' perspectives', in Oliveira, B., Mafra, I., and Amaral, J.S. (eds.), Current Topics on Food Authentication (Research Signpost/Transworld Research Network, India, 2011), pp. 1-22). From December 2001 to September 2006 he was President of the APA (the Portuguese Anthropological Association). He is now a member of the Consultative Council of the WCAA (World Council of Anthropological Associations). Between 1990 and 2000 he was a member of the board of SNESup (a Portuguese union of researchers and university professors). He is a member of ASFS (Association for the Study of Food & Society), the AAA (American Anthropological Association), and EASA (the European Association of Social Anthropologists).

Review Quotes:

"One of my take-to-the-desert-island favorite books ... The editors of this current volume extend Williams' insights into tropes of the country and the city to the problem of food in the contemporary era ... [and] treat us to several fascinating examples of the tenacity of these tropes in the messy and dynamic material realities of contemporary food production, circulation, and consumption." --AllegraLaboratory.net

"This book deals with an historical dichotomy (rural versus urban) that colors almost every discussion of food and diet: Is the city the only true site of gourmet indulgence? Does the romanticization of country food hide the decline of rural life? Is food tourism a form of social exploitation? This collection explores such issues in the context of supermarkets, heritage movements, urban food movements, and the globalization of the Mediterranean diet. This is the "new" ethnography at its best." --James L. Watson, Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus Harvard University, USA

"With its focus on examining the relationships between and problematizing the tropes of 'city' and 'rural' through the lens of food, this volume makes a valuable contribution to the emerging discipline of critical food studies. It consolidates emerging strands of research in interesting and useful ways by bringing together at once seemingly disparate themes and interrogating them through lenses of city and country. The collection is empirically rich and diverse and speaks to a range of interests, topics and perspectives. The ways that issues of city and country are tacitly explicated within the work of individual contributors is fantastic, and the ways in which they are woven together transforms them into a superb collection." --Benjamin Coles, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Leicester, UK

"For too long tropes of the city vs. countryside and the values associated with these categories have been taken for granted in food studies. This volume is important in unpacking those categories, examining how they are made, remade and contested in relationship to one another, and the ideological systems that inform how those categories are made in the first place. This is a very timely and necessary intervention in food studies literature." --Melissa L. Caldwell, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

"Drawing on a series of telling examples, the authors highlight the value of a comparative, ethnographic perspective in exploring the complex interconnections between urban and rural foodways, past and present. The result is a fitting tribute to Raymond Williams' pioneering work, extending the geographical scope of his argument and using its intellectual power to challenge conventional stereotypes about the country and the city." --Peter Jackson, Professor of Human Geography, University of Sheffield, UK

"The volume is especially appropriate for those working in rural and urban studies and can easily be assigned for undergraduate and graduate level coursework [...] Individual chapters
will be of interest to those with related regional and topic focuses, though the material is heavily
weighted towards Portugal. And for those interested in Williams's work, the intrigue of this
volume remains, in large part, due to the strength of his original insight. What the editors give
readers, where perhaps many food anthologies fall short, is a comprehensive theoretical perspective
from which to analyze the plethora of ways humans produce, consume, represent, and interpret contemporary foodways." --Amanda Green, Graduate Journal for Food Studies