CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE
This course argues that "agriculture," "nature," and "consumption" are all pressing feminist themes. As such, we will explore various dimensions of the cultural and political ecology/economy of producing, processing, circulating, preparing, and consuming sustenance. Recently, there has been an increasing awareness of the "where" of our food supply with growing concerns of food safety, food security, and food sovereignty, as well as a growing awareness of the far-reaching social, ecological, economic, and poliltical implications of a global food system. The concepts of "food miles," "foodshed" and "food desert" have entered mainstream lexicon, while "local" and "organic" have risen to such prominence they risk becoming mere, neoliberalized brands themselves. Within the academy, however, these topics remain relatively under-studied, particularly given their theoretical vagueness—and their significance for human survival. A feminist perspective has much to offer these burgeoning ideas about food. Concepts of cultural and political ecology come to life via the subject of food(s). Topics for discussion will include: Food and Labor, Food and Inequality, Food and Trade, Edible Consumption, The Geo-politics of Food Aid, Feminism and Food, Food and Globalization, Subsistence as Resistance, Standardization via Foods, Food and Identity, Slow Food and the Class Critique, Food and 'Development,' Urbanization and Food, The Geography of Food Safety, Unaffordable Food, Food Tourism, Food and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Neoliberalized Nutrition, Food Sovereignty, and Food Security.
In the last fifty years, our food supply has undergone major troubling shifts. This class will address these issues by exploring food as a commodity. Where does our food come from? Who sells it to us, and what is their stake in the growth and manufacturing? Who cooks it for us and with what ends in mind? What cultural processes have shaped the planting, harvesting, cooking, packaging, shipping, advertising, selling, and buying of our food? What do these shifts mean for us humans, for farmers, for farm animals, and for the greater environment?
Most of the food our parents and grandparents ate (along with all the other humans who populated the planet for at least the last 8,000 years) was gathered or produced and cooked within 100 miles of where it was consumed. While there may have been treats of citrus, coffee, tea, or chocolate for the prosperous times, civilizations have existed on local foods for millennia. Seeds were saved from generation to generation to grow crops and the animals consumed came from either the wild, or—once domesticated—were part of a crop based system; that is, they ate what we couldn’t or didn’t, and their manure provided needed fertilization for the soil. Most households kept “kitchen gardens” and women were almost always responsible for preparing food.
Refrigeration, transnational corporations, the necessity of two incomes per family, and global capitalism changed all that. For example: the bread you had for breakfast was most likely made from genetically modified wheat; virtually all grains now are altered to produce sterile fruits, which forces farmers to buy new seed every year to produce more profit for industrial agriculture. These practices have caused the foreclosure of untold small family farms; indeed, as we’ll discover, the vast number of suicides of farmers and all over the world can be attributed solely to lack of seed. Climate change, drought, and flooding have not only produced worldwide famine, they’ve changed the ways we grow food. Where smaller farms used to be the norm, large farms growing only one crop—i.e., “monoculture” now prevails. And these monocultural plant-based crops today rely on chemical fertilizer, as it is more efficient and profitable to farm animals separately. Different chemicals are sprayed on or engineered into the wheat in your bread (and all the plants you eat) to keep the bugs away and the weeds down. More chemicals are added when food is prepared industrially to increase its shelf life. With a couple of exceptions for chemicals like DDT and certain additives, few long-term studies have been done to examine how GMO’s, synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and many preservatives and stabilizers affect human health.
Nowhere is globalization more apparent than in fish and meat production; the “local” Whole Foods Atlantic salmon fillet you had for lunch may have been farmed in tanks off the coast of North Carolina, but it was most likely frozen and shipped to China (where labor is cheap) to have its bones removed. If the fossil fuel investment in farmed fish (aquaculture) is shocking, the state of waste related to ocean fishing is even more appalling; most scientists agree that the oceans will be empty of edible fish by the year 2050, perhaps even sooner. And if you think the beef, pork, or chicken you ate for dinner came from the happy farms portrayed in childhood storybooks, think again. Today’s livestock is almost entirely raised in “factory farms,” torture chambers that treat animals as living flesh machines. These animals don’t have enough space to turn around, spread their wings, or even once meet their offspring. Not once in their lives will they smell fresh air or feel the sunshine. They are fed a constant supply of hormones and antibiotics, which cause human health problems from cancer to antibiotic resistant superbugs. And people who live within ten miles of these factory farms suffer even greater health problems than those of us who eat this meat. The waste from these industries has polluted the soil and surrounding environments astronomically.
Monocultural agribusiness corporations are primarily invested not in the healthy nourishment of our bodies, and certainly not in the sustainability of the land, its farmers, or the wellbeing of nonhuman animals, but solely in profits. “Externalities” (as the industry calls them) such as environmental degradation, human disease, and animal suffering constitute the hidden costs of these profits. It’s not easy to look at the problem of industrialized food; most of us would rather turn our heads, ignore it, and go one with our current practices. But the food industry is counting on our apathy and ignorance. It recognizes that few of us have the time for or the interest in changing the way we eat.
Moreover, shifting to a local based food supply is not easy, and we’ll talk about the downfalls at length. In many ways, especially when it comes to meat, dairy, and eggs, eating locally is more expensive. What will the impact of such a switch be on low income families? Also, who will shop for the food? Who will prepare it? How can we add these tasks to our already full lives? Will these tasks fall disproportionally on women? This class will take a hard look at the food industry and try to measure and discuss what has been lost in recent shifts. We’ll also look at movements of resistance from the internationally heralded slow food movement to uniquely American locavore phenomenon. We’ll examine in depth their response to questions of poverty, “food deserts,” women’s labor in relation to food. As we’ll see, if we can reconfigure the meaning of food, eating different may be the best way to challenge transnational corporations and to take back control of our food supply and our lives.
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