Uneasy Combination: Identity and Strategy in the Slow Food Movement

Julie Labelle

The Slow Food movement is one effort to make food socially important, since food enters all aspects of our lives. But, as social research has had difficulty recognizing the complexity of food, the Slow Food movement has struggled to represent food’s multiple aspects. Throughout its development, the movement has reevaluated its identity in the effort to be more widely relevant.

By understanding Slow Food’s identity project we can better understand how to conceive of food’s diversity. While some researchers have cautioned that focusing on movement identity can neglect strategy, theorists have begun to see how these aspects are interconnected. Since social movement theories have paid little attention to agriculture and food movements (Tovey 2002: 2), Slow Food is a new example for understanding how identity and strategy work together. Initially its gastronomic identity neglected material aspects of food, and the movement responded by taking on a direct politics and diversity, to incorporate more issues and actors in the food system. But, with this broader identity, Slow Food had to clarify its intentions for social change, so it allied with related movements and created a more public image.

While identity has been a central concern in Slow Food’s development, this project has also been strategic, in legitimating the movement’s views of food, broadening its resource base, and making it an active and adaptable means of social change. As a result, Slow Food has become a practical alternative to the dominant food system and a participant in changing that system.

Full Paper


Source
Presented at the First Annual Conference for Social Research in Organic Agriculture. Guelph, Ontario. January 2004


Author Location and Affiliation
Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, jelabell@uvic.ca


en français