Food Insecurity (Critical Food Studies)

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.

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.