Mobilising bodies: visceral identification in the Slow Food movement

Abstract

This paper introduces a visceral take on the role of identity in social movement mobilisation. The authors emphasise how identity goes beyond cognitive labels to implicate the entire minded-body. It is suggested that political ideas, beliefs and self definitions require a bodily kind of resonance in order to activate various kinds of environmental and social activism. The authors refer to this bodily resonance as 'visceral processes of identification' and, through empirical investigation with the Slow Food (SF) movement, they reveal specific instances of such processes at work. Examining SF in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Berkeley, California, USA, the authors ask how SF comes to feel in the bodies of members and non-members and they interrogate the role that feelings play in the development of activism(s). Bodies are shown to both align with movements' socio-political aims and (re)create them. The account provides a means for shifting recent social theoretical attention to bodied ⁄ material life to a broad application in political geography, political ecology and social movement theory.key words body food social movements sensory-based methods Slow Food movement visceral geographies

Mobility, embodiment, and scales: Filipino immigrant perspectives on local food

“…Furthermore, I extend DeLind's (2006) and HayesConroy and Martin's (2010) arguments towards immigrants: their bodies carry with them food-tastes developed and experienced in their previous homeland, and they do not inevitably shed them in their new location. DeLind (2006), along with Crouch (1993, cited in Feenstra 1997 and Kloppenburg et al (1996), suggests the adaptation and assimilation of these immigrant bodies into the land through the ''becoming native'' storyline.…”

“…Although DeLind (2006, p. 134) employs the concept ''place holder'' to depict how a ''body'' can develop into a ''local'' in a place, I use it instead to show how immigrants embody such ''interactions, relationships, and histories'' from the Philippines in the immigrant's new ''place'' in the US. Additionally, Hayes-Conroy and Martin (2010) develop the notion ''visceral geography'' to demonstrate how bodies relate to space. In their study of the slow food movement, HayesConroy and Martin (2010) ultimately argue that we need to attend to bodily sensation and its interaction with physiological and spatial shifts.…”

“…Additionally, Hayes-Conroy and Martin (2010) develop the notion ''visceral geography'' to demonstrate how bodies relate to space. In their study of the slow food movement, HayesConroy and Martin (2010) ultimately argue that we need to attend to bodily sensation and its interaction with physiological and spatial shifts.…”

Tasting Sustainability: Using Multisensory Activities to Retune Food Preferences

“…For those looking to learn more about the social determinants of consumer food choices, see Jaffe and Gertler ( 2006 ) and Vermeir and Verbeke ( 2006 ) for a discussion of the gap between consumers' attitudes, behaviors, and intentions to consume sustainable foods. Finally, to learn how visceral experience with sustainable food can mobilize people to participate in social and environmental activism, see Hayes-Conroy and Martin ( 2010 ). Other background readings can be found in ESM-A.…”

Wine is not Coca-Cola: marketization and taste in alternative food networks

“…Similarly Carolan (2011) suggests that embodied and reflexive involvements with non-mass produced foods are central to the forging of new sensibilities and appetites which help support their production in the long term. Importantly, the idea of train-able taste is the key tenet of the Slow Food movement, which seeks to mobilise the bodies of consumers in order to support small-scale and traditional food making (Hayes-Conroy and Martin 2010). This is to be achieved by firstly developing an education in taste and smell through exposure to local and regional foodstuffs (Pietrykowski 2004: 311-12), and secondly by enabling members to feel good through such sensations (Hayes-Conroy and Martin 2010).…”