Organic Foodscapes and the Corporate Selling of Place

Andrew Biro¹ and Josée Johnston²

Abstract
There is a strong ecological imperative to organize food systems at a local scale that fosters democracy and sustainability. Corporations increasingly frame global commodities as attentive to local people, places, and individual consumer desires.

In this paper, we argue that a globalized discourse of consumerism replaces the ecological spirit of localism with a fetishized understanding of place. Discourse and content analysis are used to examine this phenomenon in corporate-organic foodscapes, and suggest that the fetishism of place sells environmental respectability, while obscuring long-distance commodity chains, globalized trade and centralized corporate control.

Our objective is not simply to expose the hypocrisy of globalized agribusinesses claiming roots in local communities, but to explore how and why this strategy is used so prominently.

Drawing from debates on globalized consumer capitalism and the politics of scale, we make suggestions for food localization movements, and highlight the limits of consumer-focused strategies for sustainability.


Source
Presented at the 2007 Social Sciences Symposium at the Guelph Organic Conference


Author Locations & Affiliations
(1) Department of Political Science, Acadia University, andrew.biro@acadiau.ca
(2) Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, jjohnsto@utm.utoronto.ca


en français


Posted March 2007