La politisation de l'alimentation ordinaire par le marché The Market's Politicization of Ordinary Food (original) (raw)
The world’s largest food corporations have been losing market share, faced with criticism and mounting consumer mistrust. While previous scholarship has demonstrated the political dimensions of, what we call, the engaged plate of food activists and the charitable plate offered to the poor, the politics of the ordinary plate of mass consumption have been largely overlooked. This article considers the evolution of distrust in France and the United States over the past 50 years, analyzing the visible effects which these transformations have had on the food supply, as the food industry has recycled the critiques it has received. The article investigates a process through which the political nature of eating has become increasingly visible within the mass industrial food system – in the sense that choices have multiplied regarding how food connects eaters and concretely positions them in social and technical systems. The food industry’s responses to criticism have resulted in the diversification of labels advertising production methods and the origin of ingredients. This diversification indirectly highlights the opacity of the historically powerful food companies. The contingency of the choices that guides their production becomes more apparent. The critical, or even conflictual relationship between eaters and the food industry has thus become a driving force behind the politicization of everyday eating. This reintroduction of the political dimension into the market is proof of the constructive nature of distrust.
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