Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology Volume 2
- The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I Methods
- Part II Embodied Environmental Sociology
- Part III Beyond the Human
- Part IV Sustainability and Climate Change
- Part V Resources
- Part VI Food and Agriculture
- 22 Future and Food: New Technologies, Old Political Debates
- 23 Eating Our Way to a Sustainable Future?
- 24 Neoliberal Globalization and Beyond: Food, Farming, and the Environment
- 25 The Sociology of Environmental Morality: Examples from Agri-Food
- Part VII Social Movements
- Index
- References
24 - Neoliberal Globalization and Beyond: Food, Farming, and the Environment
from Part VI - Food and Agriculture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2020
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology Volume 2
- The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I Methods
- Part II Embodied Environmental Sociology
- Part III Beyond the Human
- Part IV Sustainability and Climate Change
- Part V Resources
- Part VI Food and Agriculture
- 22 Future and Food: New Technologies, Old Political Debates
- 23 Eating Our Way to a Sustainable Future?
- 24 Neoliberal Globalization and Beyond: Food, Farming, and the Environment
- 25 The Sociology of Environmental Morality: Examples from Agri-Food
- Part VII Social Movements
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter investigates the social, political and environmental characteristics and impacts of food and farming in the current era of neoliberal globalization. Drawing from environmental sociology, political economy and political ecology, we consider the ways that problems with capital, labour and land intersect with ecological constraints (such as climate change and declining fossil fuels). Productivist agriculture, industrialisation, supermarketization and financialization have contributed to the demise of local food systems, the promotion of ‘obesogenic’ diets, the creation of food waste and the global ‘land rush’, with implications for both the natural environment and for deteriorating conditions for labour. Farmers have shifted from feeding nations to producing for a global economy in which food is overproduced while global hunger increases. These contradictions have prompted significant social, political, and financial struggles. Multiple ‘neoliberalisms’ have therefore emerged, and neoliberal food and farming is highly contested. The chapter concludes with a discussion of alter-globalization; an alternative to neoliberal globalization that challenges the notion of capitalist growth, highlights limits to consumption, and largely rejects market solutions to environmental problems. The right to food, ‘food sovereignty’, redistributive land reform, smallholder and family farming, de-corporatization, agro-ecology and improved democracy are discussed as key elements informing critique and resistance.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology , pp. 411 - 428Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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