Paper short abstract:

In Japan, the promotion of local food traditions is presented as a solution to fight rural decline and low food self-sufficiency. The broader local food movement that focuses on local production and consumption must also take into account local food traditions if it is to remain successful.

Paper long abstract:

Picture this: farming houses falling into disrepair, rice paddies dry and taken over by weeds, and farmers in their seventies hanging on to an outmoded way of life. Across Japan, agricultural communities like this one struggle to produce the food Japan depends on. Rural decline and food self-sufficiency are two major challenges facing the Japanese food system. To answer these problems, the Japanese government came up with a unique set of policies that attempt to promote local food traditions. The local food movement has long assumed that the solution to the industrial food system crisis is to foster local networks of food distribution and consumption. Little research has examined how local culinary traditions fit into the broader imperatives of the local food movement. Based on ethnographic research in rural Japan, I will look at how cooking school curriculum, school lunch menus and traditional food groups shape the expression of the local food movement. Although these measures are unlikely to contribute significantly to Japan's food self-sufficiency and to its rural revitalization, local food traditions can hardly be dissociated from the local food movement in Japan. In this paper, I argue that it is crucial for the local food movement to take local food practices and traditions into account if it is to remain a viable alternative model.

Paper short abstract:

Dans les évènements gastronomiques appelés ‘promenades gourmandes’ les produits locaux sont des leurres marketing permettant la survie d’une économie rurale. Mis en spectacle et empreints de terroir et d’authenticité, ils attirent des touristes venus de loin, souvent oublieux de l’idéologie locavore

Paper long abstract:

Le développement des marchés fermiers, les étiquetages ventant les produits locaux, les restaurants haut de gamme servant des produits locaux et autres ventes à la ferme révèlent que le locavorisme serait tendance. À moins que ce dernier soit plutôt la conséquence d'une résurrection des produits régionaux dont le terme « terroir » sous-tendrait une valeur ajoutée? Quoi qu'il en soit, la différence entre les individus locavores (ceux qui mangent des produits locaux) et l'ensemble des autres consommateurs ne résiderait-elle pas simplement dans le nombre plus ou moins grand de kilomètres parcourus par les denrées ou par le consommateur capable d'aller les y quérir lui-même! En ce sens, les locavores contemporains « parfaits » ne le seraient-ils pas qu'à « temps partiel »?

Dans cette communication, nous nous intéresserons aux balades gourmandes (celle de Victoriaville plus particulièrement) qui se sont développées au Québec et qui sont devenues, comme dans bien régions du monde, le point d'ancrage du tourisme gastronomique mettant l'accent sur le local et l'authentique. Nous montrerons que les intérêts économiques et politiques au centre de ce type de manifestations utilisent les produits locaux comme des leurres marketing qui permettent la survie, sinon la résurection, d'une économie rurale en pleine transformation. Mis en spectacle, et souvent auréolés de l'appellation 'terroir' ces produits attirent des touristes venus de loin, en mal de localité et d'authenticité, mais oublieux de l'idéologie locavore.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores 'local' food in a region long dominated by export coffee production. The return to local food has been demographically and market, rather than ideologically, driven, raising questions of the meaning of ‘local’ food in differing times, spaces and social groups.

Paper long abstract:

A growing number of social movements, such as the Local Food Movement and the Food Sovereignty Movement, have been advocating 'local' food production as an antidote to many of the adverse impacts of the world's dominant agro-industrial food system on both small-scale farming families and consumers worldwide. In this paper, I explore the shift towards more 'local' food growing in a region of Costa Rica long dominated by the production of coffee for international export markets. In the last 10 years, fundamental changes in the region have opened spaces for domestic food production that were not previously viable, providing an avenue of diversification and security for producers and access to more nutritious foods for an increasingly urban/peri-urban population. Long-term research in the region shows that, unlike local food movements of the Global North, in Pérez Zeledón, an ideological discourse among consumers to support local small-scale farmers has not played a role in this shift. Rather, increased production of food for local consumption is the result of regional demographic, economic, and social changes, as well as factors internal to smallholder households themselves, raising questions of the meaning of 'local' food in differing times, spaces and social groups.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation is a report on a project designed to analyze how “local food” is being produced, distributed, and consumed, both materially and discursively, in the state of VT as a strategy for transforming destructive aspects of our present-day globalized food system.

Paper long abstract:

The last couple of decades have seen a proliferation of individuals, government institutions, NGOs, and businesses committed to fixing the world's broken food system. Food activists are variously concerned with taste, health, social justice, and the environment. Most understand that the problems are deep and systemic; therefore, a wide range of strategies (from policy-making and food education to social entrepreneurship and performance art) have been devised to transform these destructive foodways. This presentation will analyze one such strategy found in the small state of Vermont; the use of 'local' branding to sell value-added products made in Vermont with Vermont-grown ingredients processed by real Vermonters with genuine Vermont methods (or at least some combination of these Vermonty qualia). The data for this study take the form of websites and other online media (newspaper articles, research papers, and grey literature generated by governments, NGOs and businesses) collected over the course of 6 months and analyzed as discourse - i.e., textual forms used to construct, circulate, and socialize the notion of "local food" as a means for promoting the health, wealth, and sociopsychological well-being of local communities and their physical environments. The objectives of this study are to 1) map examples of this strategy, 2) deconstruct the communicative strategies employed, and 3) set the stage for conducting ethnographic research in one or more of these actual settings, in order to assess the actual efficacy of this discursive strategy on the ground. This presentation is a preliminary report on the virtual end of the study.

Paper short abstract:

I explore how various actors gathered around bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord MA. What happens when some residents attempt to minimize the distance that their local water travels, and when some residents wish to maintain the freedom to decide from where they source their water?

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how various actors gathered around plastic bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord, Massachusetts in 2013. The objective has been to answer the following questions: What happens when some residents of a small town attempt to minimize the distance that their local water travels, and when some residents wish to maintain the freedom to decide from where they source their water? I use Bruno Latour to show in which ways this ban became a matter of concern, as well as how the ban and the plastic bottle are actors. I conducted fieldwork in Concord and I interviewed proponents of the ban, those opposed to it, as well as local business owners affected by it. The discussions turned from the impact of bottled water on our environment to the political impact of bottled water companies and large corporations on local Concord issues. I demonstrate that through debates and an ensuing ban on the sale of plastic bottles of water, the bottle itself moved from being an apolitical commodity to become a highly political one. This allows us to analyze the impact this shift has on the movement of water on both a local and a global scale.