1st Edition

Food Insecurity A Matter of Justice, Sovereignty, and Survival

Edited By Tamar Mayer, Molly D. Anderson Copyright 2020
    256 Pages 13 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    252 Pages 13 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book explores the experiences, causes, and consequences of food insecurity in different geographical regions and historical eras. It highlights collective and political actions aimed at food sovereignty as solutions to mitigate suffering.

    Despite global efforts to end hunger, it persists and has even increased in some regions. This book provides interdisciplinary and historical perspectives on the manifestations of food insecurity, with case studies illustrating how people coped with violations of their rights during the war-time deprivation in France; the neoliberal incursions on food supply in Turkey, Greece, and Nicaragua; as well as the consequences of radioactive contamination of farmland in Japan. This edited collection adopts an analytical approach to understanding food insecurity by examining how the historical and political situations in different countries have resulted in an unfolding dialectic of food insecurity and resistance, with the most marginalized people—immigrants, those in refugee camps, poor peasants, and so forth—consistently suffering the worst effects, yet still maintaining agency to fight back.  

    The book tackles food insecurity on a local as well as a global scale and will thus be useful for a broad range of audiences, including students, scholars, and the general public interested in studying food crises, globalization, and current global issues.

    List of figures

    List of tables

    Notes on contributors

    Acknowledgements

    1 Food insecurity in context

    MOLLY D. ANDERSON AND TAMAR MAYER

    2 Causes and consequences of njaa (hunger) in the household: food security and intimate partner violence within an informal settlement in Mombasa, Kenya

    ADAM GILBERTSON

    3 Food is a gift of the earth: food sovereignty among migrant farmworkers in rural Vermont

    JESSIE MAZAR AND TERESA MARES

    4 Food insecurity and the struggle for food sovereignty in the time of structural adjustment: the case of Greece

    CHARALAMPOS KONSTANTINIDIS

    5 Food insecurity in the age of neoliberalism in Turkey and its neighbors

    MURAT ÖZTÜRK, FAIK GÜR, AND JOOST JONGERDEN

    6 Links between land access, land use, and hunger in today’s neoliberal Nicaragua

    BIRGIT SCHMOOK, LINDSEY CARTE, CLAUDIA RADEL, AND SANTANA NAVARRO OLMEDO

    7 Global water grabbing and food insecurity

    JAMPEL DELL’ANGELO, MARIA CRISTINA RULLI, AND PAOLO D’ODORICO

    8 Food security in a premodern agrarian empire: the case of Rome

    KYLE HARPER

    9 The transformation of famine relief regimes in modern China

    PIERRE FULLER

    10 Bitter greens and sweet potatoes: food practice and memories of hunger in rural China

    ELLEN OXFELD

    11 "Groveling for lentils": the culture and memory of food scarcity in occupied France

    PAULA SCHWARTZ

    12 Coping with food safety risks: information sources and responses by residents in Japan in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident

    TOMIKO YAMAGUCHI AND JOO-YOUNG JUNG

    13 Framing food insecurity and the GMO "problem" in transatlantic trade

    PATRICIA A. STAPLETON

    Index

    Biography

    Tamar Mayer is the Robert R. Churchill Professor of Geosciences at Middlebury College, Vermont, where she is the director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. She is the editor or co-editor of five books that focus on various dimensions of international and global crises.

    Molly D. Anderson is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Food Studies and Academic Director of Food Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. She works on food system transformations toward greater resilience and sustainability, the right to food, and the intersections of civil society and academic perspectives.