Locating Ecofeminism in Encounters with Food and Place

Citation:

Mallory, Chaone. 2013. “Locating Ecofeminism in Encounters with Food and Place.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 26 (1): 171–89.

Author: Chaone Mallory

Abstract:

This article explores the relationship between ecofeminism, food, and the philosophy of place. Using as example my own neighborhood in a racially integrated area of Philadelphia with a thriving local foods movement that nonetheless is nearly exclusively white and in which women are the invisible majority of purchasers, farmers, and preparers, the article examines what ecofeminism contributes to the discussion of racial, gendered, classed discrepancies regarding who does and does not participate in practices of locavorism and the local foods movement more broadly. Ecofeminism, it is argued here, with its focus on the ways that race, class, gender, and place are ontologically entangled, helps to highlight the ways identity and society are made and re-made through our encounters with food.

Keywords: ecofeminism, local foods, gender and raced embodiment, co-ops, community supported agriculture, philosophy of place

Topics: Agriculture, Class, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Livelihoods, Race Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2013