In his most seminal book, Herbert Marcuse sharply objects to what he saw as pervasive one-dimensional thinking-the uncritical and conformist acceptance of existing structures, norms and behaviours. Originally published in 1964, One Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the politically radical sixties. Marcuse's searing indictment of Western society remains as chillingly relevant today as it was at its first writing.

This essay tells a story. It is a story of the author's experience with community supported agriculture (CSA). It is also a story that depicts the difficulties of academic activism and grass-roots engagement. As an academic and an activist, the author argues that it is important to admit and share experiences that are “less than perfect,” since they are the basis for a more complete knowledge and a more organic existence, individually, collectively, sensually, and intellectually.

This analysis uses an analytical frameworkgrounded in political economy perspectives of theglobalization of the agro-food sector combined with acase study approach focusing on the Marine StewardshipCouncil (MSC) to inform discussions regarding thecharacteristics of societal regulation in thepost-Fordist era. More specifically, this analysisuses the case of the emergence of the MSC toinvestigate propositions regarding the existence of,and location of, nascent forms of a transnationalState. The MSC proposes to regulate the certificationof sustainable fisheries at the global level throughan eco-labeling program. The MSC (...) was created in 1996by the transnational environmental organization theWorld Wildlife Fund and the transnational corporationUnilever. The emergence of the MSC has generatedheated discussion in fisheries management circles thatis in general divided along North/South lines. Thisanalysis indicates that the case of the MSC providesvaluable insights into the possible characteristics ofsupranational regulatory mechanisms that might emulatethe role of the nation-State in the post-Fordist era. (shrink)

This essay tells a story. It is a story of the author's experience with community supported agriculture (CSA). It is also a story that depicts the difficulties of academic activism and grass-roots engagement. As an academic and an activist, the author argues that it is important to admit and share experiences that are “less than perfect,” since they are the basis for a more complete knowledge and a more organic existence, individually, collectively, sensually, and intellectually.

In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.

Baudrillard's bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of general linguistics, is in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don't refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix. Simulations never existed as a book before it was "translated" into English. Actually it came from two different bookCovers written at different times by Jean Baudrillard. The first part of Simulations, and most provocative because it made a fiction of (...) theory, was "The Procession of Simulacra." It had first been published in Simulacre et Simulations. The second part, written much earlier and in a more academic mode, came from L'Echange Symbolique et la Mort. It was a half-earnest, half-parodical attempt to "historicize" his own conceit by providing it with some kind of genealogy of the three orders of appearance: the Counterfeit attached to the classical period; Production for the industrial era; and Simulation, controlled by the code. It was Baudrillard's version of Foucault's Order of Things and his ironical commentary of the history of truth. The book opens on a quote from Ecclesiastes asserting flatly that "the simulacrum is true." It was certainly true in Baudrillard's book, but otherwise apocryphal.One of the most influential essays of the 20th century, Simulations was put together in 1983 in order to be published as the first little black book of Semiotext's new Foreign Agents Series. Baudrillard's bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of general linguistics, was in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don't refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix.In effect Baudrillard's essay was upholding the only reality there was in a world that keeps hiding the fact that it has none. Simulacrum is its own pure simulacrum and the simulacrum is true. In his celebrated analysis of Disneyland, Baudrillard demonstrates that its childish imaginary is neither true nor false, it is there to make us believe that the rest of America is real, when in fact America is a Disneyland. It is of the order of the hyper-real and of simulation. Few people at the time realized that Baudrillard's simulacrum itself wasn't a thing, but a "deterrence machine," just like Disneyland, meant to reveal the fact that the real is no longer real and illusion no longer possible. But the more impossible the illusion of reality becomes, the more impossible it is to separate true from false and the real from its artificial resurrection, the more panic-stricken the production of the real is. (shrink)

Farm-to-school (FTS) programs have garnered the attentions and energies of people in a diverse array of social locations in the food system and are serving as a sort of touchstone for many in the alternative agrifood movement. Yet, unlike other alternative agrifood initiatives, FTS programs intersect directly with the long-established institution of the welfare state, including its vestiges of New Deal farm programs and public entitlement. This paper explores how FTS is navigating the liminal terrain of public and private initiative, (...) particularly the ways in which it interfaces with neoliberalism as both a material and discursive project. It examines the political emergence of school food programs and finds that FTS is strikingly similar to traditional school programs in objectives, but differs in approach. Yet, in their efforts to fill in the gaps created by political and economic neoliberalization, FTS advocates are in essence producing neoliberal forms and practices afresh. These include those associated with contingent labor relationships, private funding sources, and the devolution of responsibility to the local, all of which have serious consequences for social equity. The paper also discusses how FTS programs are employing the rhetoric of neoliberal governmentality, including personal responsibility and individual success, consumerism, and choice. While these may be tactical choices used to secure funding in a competitive environment, they may also contribute to the normalization of neoliberalism, further circumscribing the possibilities of what can be imagined and created to solve social problems. (shrink)

Bioregionalists have championed the utility of the concept of the watershed as an organizing framework for thought and action directed to understanding and implementing appropriate and respectful human interaction with particular pieces of land. In a creative analogue to the watershed, permaculturist Arthur Getz has recently introduced the term “foodshed” to facilitate critical thought about where our food is coming from and how it is getting to us. We find the “foodshed” to be a particularly rich and evocative metaphor; but (...) it is much more than metaphor. Like its analogue the watershed, the foodshed can serve us as a conceptual and methodological unit of analysis that provides a frame for action as well as thought. Food comes to most of us now through a global food system that is destructive of both natural and social communities. In this article we explore a variety of routes for the conceptual and practical elaboration of the foodshed. While corporations that are the principal beneficiaries of a global food system now dominate the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food, alternatives are emerging that together could form the basis for foodshed development. Just as many farmers are recognizing the social and environmental advantages to sustainable agriculture, so are many consumers coming to appreciate the benefits of fresh and sustainably produced food. Such producers and consumers are being linked through such innovative arrangements as community supported agriculture and farmers markets. Alternative producers, alternative consumers, and alternative small entrepreneurs are rediscovering community and finding common ground in municipal and community food councils. Recognition of one's residence within a foodshed can confer a sense of connection and responsibility to a particular locality. The foodshed can provide a place for us to ground ourselves in the biological and social realities of living on the land and from the land in a place that we can call home, a place to which we are or can become native. (shrink)

``Civic agriculture'' identifies adiverse and growing body of food and farmingenterprises fitted to the needs of localgrowers, consumers, rural economies, andcommunities. The term lends shape andlegitimacy to development paradigms that existin opposition to the global,corporately-dominated food system. Civicagriculture also widens the scope of ag-relatedconcerns, moving away from a strictlymechanistic focus on production and capitalefficiency, and toward the more holisticreintegration of people in place. To date,researchers and practitioners have attendedclosely to the economic benefits of newmarketing arrangements and institutions (e.g.,value-added co-ops, CSAs, (...) and farmer'smarkets). Local food and farming has a criticalrole to play in the development of analternative commerce. At the same time, this isonly half the promise of civic agriculture.Civic agriculture can (and should) promotecitizenship and environmentalism within bothrural and urban settings not only throughmarket-based models of economic behavior, butthrough common ties to place and physicalengagement with that place. (shrink)

I provide an historical overview of the development of the Sociology of Agriculture as a critical response to perceived inadequacies of conservative theories of social change regarding rural society in general, and agriculture in particular. I do this by focusing on the three questions that have dominated the discourse on agrifood studies: “The Agrarian Question,” “The Environment Question,” and “The Food Question.” I analyze the success and constraints of selected alternative agrifood initiatives in relation to the three questions and introduce (...) a fourth, the Emancipatory Question. I conclude that agrifood social scientists need to embrace a praxis orientation to agrifood studies and participate in social movements designed to create a more socially just alternative agrifood system. (shrink)

Employing the case of the global tuna-fish industry, it is argued that the process of globalization is contested terrain as it opens “free spaces” to some classes or groups and closes “free spaces” to others; that the nation-States' regulatory abilities are weakened; and finally, that while some social movements may gain, others are marginalized. Three basic conclusions are reached. (1) The industry's actions were successfully “contested” by environmental groups supported by the legislative and judicial branches of the US State. (2) (...) Simultaneously, pro-environmental legislation is currently threatened, along with several national and international environmental accords. (3) Workers in the US and, particularly, in Latin America are paying the consequences of the introduction of pro-environmental legislation and the actions of transnational corporations (TNCs). (shrink)