“Eating, Ethics and the Generative Spaces of Alternative Food Networks”

How responsibilities towards others are articulated through the market or, to pose it slightly differently, what are the connections fashioned through ethical consumption made of? This presentation explores the ways in which ethical connections between the consumption and production of foodstuffs are fashioned through a creative tension between fixity (or territorialisation) and movement (or mobilization) that works at a variety of scales – from the global networks through which food commodities circulate, to the bodily metabolisms that transform the flesh of plants and animals into that of humans through the foods they eat. It argues that markets have social and environmental consequences and generate ethical connections whether we consciously acknowledge these consequences and connections in our consumption practices or not.

Sarah J. Whatmore, Professor of Environment and Public Policy Director International Graduate School, Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE)
Tuesday, March 14
12:30 – 2:30, York University, HNES 140
How responsibilities towards others are articulated through the market or, to pose it slightly differently, what are the connections fashioned through ethical consumption made of? This presentation explores the ways in which ethical connections between the consumption and production of foodstuffs are fashioned through a creative tension between fixity (or territorialisation) and movement (or mobilization) that works at a variety of scales – from the global networks through which food commodities circulate, to the bodily metabolisms that transform the flesh of plants and animals into that of humans through the foods they eat. It argues that markets have social and environmental consequences and generate ethical connections whether we consciously acknowledge these consequences and connections in our consumption practices or not.
The presentation will focus on the practices involved in establishing and sustaining so-called