Current discussions of the ethics around alternative food movements–concepts such as ‘local, ‘ ‘organic, ‘ and ‘fair trade’–tend to focus on their growth and significance in advanced capitalist societies. In this groundbreaking contribution to critical food studies, editors Yuson Jung, Jakob A. Klein, and Melissa L. Caldwell explore what constitutes ‘ethical food’ and ‘ethical eating’ in socialist and formerly socialist societies. With essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and geographers, this politically nuanced volume offers insight into the origins of alternative food movements and their place in today’s global economy. Collectively, the essays cover discourses on food and morality; the material and social practices surrounding production, trade, and consumption; and the political and economic power of social movements in Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Lithuania, Russia, and Vietnam. Scholars and students will gain important historical and anthropological perspective on how the dynamics of state-market-citizen relations continue to shape the ethical and moral frameworks guiding food practices around the world.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Ethical Eating and (Post)socialist Alternatives
Jakob A. Klein, Yuson Jung, and Melissa L. Caldwell
1. Homogenizing Europe: Raw Milk, Risk Politics, and Moral Economies in Post-Socialist Lithuania
Diana Mincyte
2. The Moral Significance of Food in Reform-Era Rural China
Ellen Oxfeld
3. Placing Alternative Food Networks: Farmers’ Markets in Post-Soviet Vilnius, Lithuania
Renata Blumberg
4. Ambivalent Consumers and the Limits of Certification: Organic Foods in Postsocialist Bulgaria
Yuson Jung
5. Connecting with the Countryside? ‘Alternative’ Food Movements with Chinese Characteristics
Jakob A. Klein
6. Vegetarian Ethics and Politics in Late-Socialist Vietnam
Nir Avieli
7. Agroecology and the Cuban Nation
Marisa Wilson
8. Gardening for the State: Cultivating Bionational Citizens in Postsocialist Russia
Melissa L. Caldwell
Afterword: Ethical Food Systems, Between Suspicion and Hope
Harry G. West
Contributors
Index
About the author
Yuson Jung is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Wayne State University. Jakob A. Klein is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Melissa L. Caldwell is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the author of Dacha Idylls: Living Organically in Russia’s Countryside and Not by Bread Alone: Social Support in the New Russia.
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