The Politics of the Pantry: Stories, food and social change

Authors

  • Jennifer Braun University of Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v1i2.58

Keywords:

eating, politics

Abstract

There is no shortage of books, magazines, lifestyle shows, and academic texts that have something to say about what, where, how, and with whom we should eat. In his book The Politics of the Pantry, Michael Mikulak critically engages with this storied food, a genre of literature, film, and new media that attempts to reveal the “truth” behind the veil of food and the hidden worlds of agriculture. He does so in order to take up key issues and ideas related to food, global warming, and the future of the economy that has been examined in popular texts and mainstream media. His book is “an attempt to understand how we got here, where we are going, and how we can get somewhere else.” Throughout the book Mikulak weaves personal stories and anecdotes related to his journey with local food that informs and enlivens his academic theory and analysis, attempting to rupture the literary boundary between prose and academic inquiry. He knits together an optimism about the power of pantry politics with a more reflexive and realistic picture of the major stumbling blocks the alternative food movement often faces.

Author Biography

Jennifer Braun, University of Alberta

Jennifer is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta.  Her current research interests include: the social construction of motherhood, childhood health, and childhood obesity in developed nations; and the role of rural farmwomen and heirarchies of power in the production and distribution of food (particularly in the Western Canadian prairie provinces).  Her current supervisors are Dr. Mary Beckie and Dr. Ken Caine at the U of A.  When she is not busying studying, Jen enjoys cooking delicious food, biking, swimming, and spending time with family.
photo of a figure standing behind a pile of food books, one of which has a cleaver in it

Downloads

Published

2014-10-06

How to Cite

Braun, J. (2014). The Politics of the Pantry: Stories, food and social change. Canadian Food Studies La Revue Canadienne Des études Sur l’alimentation, 1(2), 9–11. https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v1i2.58

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2014): Book Reviews (and an event review!)

Section

Book/Art/Event Reviews

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. (See more on Open Access.)