Johnston 2009 Lost in Supermarket

8/3/2019 Johnston 2009 Lost in Supermarket

1/24

Lost in the Supermarket: TheCorporate-Organic Foodscape and the

Struggle for Food Democracy

Josee JohnstonDepartment of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;

[email protected]

Andrew BiroDepartment of Political Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada;

[email protected]

Norah MacKendrickDepartment Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;

[email protected]

Abstract: The corporatization of organics has been critiqued for the concentration of

ownership, as well as the ecological consequences of the long distances commodities travel

between field and table. These critiques suggest a competing vision of food democracy which

strives to organize the production and consumption of food at a proximate geographic scale

while increasing opportunities for democratically managed cooperation between producers

and consumers. This paper examines how the corporate-organic foodscape has interacted and

evolved alongside competing counter movements of food democracy. Using discourse and

content analysis, we examine how corporate organics incorporate messages of locally

scaled food production, humble origins, and a commitment to family farms and employees,

and explore some of the complexity of the corporate-organic foodscape. This paper contributes

to the understanding of commodity fetishism in the corporate-organic foodscape, and speaksmore generally to the need for sophisticated understandings of the complex relationship between

social movement innovation and market adaptation.

Keywords: organics, food democracy, commodity fetishism, corporate foodscape, place

Introduction

We strongly believe that buying organic foods is a form ofenvironmental activism. When you choose organic products, you are

consuming products that not only are good for you, but also are

good for the biosystem of todayand thats good for tomorrow. In

many ways, you are eating and drinking for the futureyours and the

planets (The Organic Cow website, http://www.theorganiccow.com/)

Antipode Vol. 41 No. 3 2009 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 509532

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00685.xC 2009 The Authors

Journal compilation C 2009 Editorial Board of Antipode.


2/24

510 Antipode

For the past half-century, the primary manifestation of an alternative to

industrialized agriculture in North America has been the organic food

movement. The original movement emphasized the agrarian ideals of

small-scale food production, community engagement, and ecological

responsibility. While at least a rhetorical commitment to those goals

is maintained, todays organic food sector has moved considerably

beyond small-scale farm to table distribution to a corporate model of

large factory farms supplying distant supermarkets (Guthman 2004a), a

phenomenon we refer to as corporate organics. Organics is one of

the fastest growing sectors in agriculture in both the United States

and Canada (Canadian Organic Growers 2006; ERS-USDA 2005),

with annual growth rates in both countries around 20% (Canadian

Organic Growers 2006; Oberholtzer et al 2005:4). This production and

distribution structure has raised questions about the ecological and socialimpacts of organic food production, particularly in terms of the fossil

fuel required to transport organic products within global commodity

chains (Fromartz 2006; Halweil 2002; Pollan 2006b). Consequently,

the organics industry is viewed skeptically by many alternative food

system activists, particularly since many of the original small organic

companies have been purchased by the worlds biggest food processors

(Howard 2005, 2007).

The corporatization of organics can be contrasted with a competing

vision of food democracy articulated by activists in alternativeagricultural initiatives. While food democracy represents a decentralized

terrain, these projects are commonly animated by an imperative to

organize the food system at a scale where democratic needs are

met, sensitivity to resource depletion is heightened, and privileged

core regions do not live off the carrying capacity of the periphery

(Halweil 2005; Hassanein 2003; Shiva 2003). Food democracy projects

include farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSA),

and food box schemes, all of which are represented as alternativesto a corporate supermarket system that sells food grown, processed,

and controlled thousands of miles away. The increasing popularity

of food democracy options represents part of collective efforts to

oppose the corporatization of agriculture and the commons more

generally (Belliveau 2005; Goldman 1998; Hinrichs 2003; Johnston

2003). Food democracy supporters advocate eating locally as a way

for communities to obtain greater control over the food system

and engage in more meaningful interactions with food producers

(Brecher et al 2000; Lappe and Lappe 2002; Thompson andCoskuner-Balli 2007). Calls for more local control and meaningful

interactions between farmers and consumers have diffused into the

public consciousness in North America and Europewith increasing

media coverage of the local food movement (eg The Economist

2006), the development of local food certification programs, and eatC 2009 The Authors



3/24

The Corporate-organic Foodscape 511

local marketing schemes (Dupuis and Goodman 2005:362; Friedmann

2007).

While the localization of food presents a promising alternative to

an increasingly globalized and corporatized organic sector, a local

versus global food binary is not as simple as it might initially appear

(Allen 2004:179; Hinrichs 2003:34; Watts et al 2005:31). Scholars have

identified significant problems with unreflexive localism, and caution

against equating localized scalar relations with democratically organized

social relations (see Belliveau 2005; Born and Purcell 2006:199;

DuPuis and Goodman 2005; Hinrichs 2003). In this paper, we continue

scholarly work critiquing the fetishization of specific features of the food

system, like localism, and also explore the complexity of the corporate-

organic foodscape while drawing lessons for food democracy projects.

As we explore below, developing a robust food democracy requiresconsideration of both the limitations and possibilities of local eating.

The corporatization of organics holds important lessons that clarify the

importance of democratizing the underlying socio-economic relations

of the food system. A central concern is the problem of commodity

fetishism or, put differently, a lack of transparency in the food system

that obscures how relations of production are socially produced rather

than naturally given. It is not just that corporate-organic food is

grown industrially or shipped long distances, but that food production,

distribution, and consumption are not democratically controlled andorganized, even though presented as such. Corporate-organic usage of

food democracy themes, like eating locally and developing meaningful

relationships with producers, demonstrates the potency of these desires;

in this paper we ask how the articulation of these desires takes on an

individualized, commodified form, and how this relates to collective-

oriented food democracy projects challenging centralized, privately

owned relations of production.

Analytically, our contribution is to emphasize that developing arobust food democracy requires a greater appreciation of the dynamic

relationship between corporate adaptation and social movement

innovation. Scholars have long identified how social movement themes

can be transformed into marketing opportunities (Frank 1998; Jameson

1991:49), and while the co-optation of messages from the organic

movement has received some attention (Thompson and Coskuner-

Balli 2007) this process requires further investigation. Rather than a

simple story of co-optation, we advocate a dialectical approach that

recognizes a dynamic relationship between market actors and socialmovements (Schor 2007) and sees the corporate-organic foodscape as

a hybrid entity drawing from movement themes while using market

mechanisms. This does not mean abandoning a critical perspective

towards corporate capitalism, but analytically it necessitates skepticism

towards simplistic binaries (good/evil, local/global, nature/culture) thatC 2009 The Authors



4/24

512 Antipode

obscure understanding of real-world hybridity (see Latour 1993). To

more closely examine the process of marketmovement interaction, we

develop the notion of the foodscape as a conceptual lens that focuses

our investigation into food democracy and corporate organics.

Empirically, our objective is to document how food democracy

themes are being incorporated by corporate-organic marketing

particularly in an individualized, commodified formand relate this

process to collective-oriented food democracy projects challenging

centralized, privately owned relations of production. To do so, we

look at the top 25 global food processors that have acquired some

of the smaller organic brands in North America to see how these

companies use product websites to incorporate themes from food

democracy projects, particularly themes of food being rooted in a

local place, with connections to real producers. We find that themarketing of corporate organics consistently draws on food democracy

images and narratives, connecting products to a particular locale and

family farms, and highlighting a personal history behind the brand

while obscuring spatially dispersed commodity chains and centralized

ownership structures.

The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section we outline the

material and ideological elements of the corporate-organic foodscape,

and chart key precepts of a vision of food democracy. We then map

the contemporary corporate-organic foodscape using a discourse andcontent analysis of corporate-organic food websites. In the following

section we analytically unpack our findings, arguing that the corporate-

organic foodscape operates as a hybrid entity that cultivates a fetishized

image of ecological embeddedness in locally scaled places, while

obscuring long-distance commodity chains, globalized trade, and

centralized corporate control over the food system. We conclude the

paper by examining challenges and opportunities facing food democracy

movements, particularly in light of the political-economic prominenceand ideational maneuverability of corporate organics.

The Corporate-organic Foodscape and the Struggle

for Food DemocracyThe term foodscape has been used generally to describe the spatial

distribution of food across urban spaces and institutional settings

(Winson 2004; Yasmeen 1996). Drawing from geographic and

sociological literature on the landscape (eg Mitchell 2001; Zukin 1991),we employ the term foodscape to describe a social construction that

captures and constitutes cultural ideals of how food relates to specific

places, people and food systems. As Cook and Crang emphasize, foods

do not simply come from places . . . but also make places as symbolic

constructs, being deployed in the constructions of various imaginativeC 2009 The Authors



5/24


geographies (1996:140). Just as a landscape painting has a mediated,

indirect relationship to physical ontology or place, a foodscape may

variously capture or obscure the ecological sites and social relations

of food production, consumption, and distribution. Foodscapes involve

elements of materiality and ideology and are contested spaces where

actors struggle to define the terrain of political action, including

the extent of market involvement and private ownership of food. In

the next section we describe how the corporate-organic foodscape is

both a material and political-economic phenomenon, and contrast this

foodscape with the activities and ideals of food democracy movements.

The Corporate-organic Foodscape

As demand increased for organic food in North America, organicsbecame part of the mainstream institutionalized food system, largely

owing to the efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture

(USDA), which developed uniform national standards for organic

crop production in 1990, and further detailed those standards in 2002

(Guthman 2004b; Ingram and Ingram 2005). The path of regulation

and certification has been consistently controversial, and organic

standardization has been a political, rather than merely a technical issue

(see DeLind 2000; Ingram and Ingram 2005). The result of this political

struggle was to transform organic from a philosophy governingmany aspects of the food production and distribution process, to a

regulatory label that focused onor some would say, fetishizedthe

regulation of agricultural inputs. Organic certification institutionalized

what was originally intended, for many participants, to be an anti-

institutional movement (Goodman and Goodman 2001). Consequently,

other than synthetic inputs, the production conditions for many organic

products now mirror those of their conventional counterparts; they often

originate on large-scale industrial farms and are sold from supermarketshelves. Organic produce is commonly distributed with trans-continental

and even global commodity chains (Raynolds 2004)1 from farms in

California, and increasingly from China (Sanders 2006), to disparate

market niches ranging from Whole Foods Market to WalMartall in

direct contrast to the original aspirations of the organics movement.

The institutionalization of organic agriculture through federal

certification standards, along with a price premium and significant

consumer interest in organics, has helped increase the presence of

major corporate players in the organics industry (Fromartz 2006;Goodman and Goodman 2001:101). Most of the worlds largest food

processing corporations are now involved in some dimension of organic

food, acquiring many of the original organic food companies, as well

as developing their own organic brands (RAFI, 2003:19). With a

growing number of suppliers, a costly certification process has emergedC 2009 The Authors



6/24

514 Antipode

and the price premium for organics has declined, thereby pushing

(and keeping) small suppliers out of the market (Guthman 2004a;

Pollan 2006b). Importantly, while corporate buyouts and economic

concentration represent a significant shift in the ownership structure

of this sector, this shift is frequently imperceptible at the level of the

foodscape, as original product names and brands are retained by new

corporate owners.

Alternative Agriculture and the Struggle for Food DemocracyFor many in the food democracy movement, this corporatization process

represents a corruption or co-optation of organic ideals. At the core of

food democracy lies the idea that people can and should be actively

participating in shaping the food system, rather than remaining passivespectators . . . [it] is about citizens having the power to determine

agro-food policies and practices locally, regionally, nationally and

globally (Hassanein 2003:79; see also Lang 1999). Organics represents

one of the earliest manifestations of a vision of food democracy.

While there were important exceptions,2 many of the original organic

farming ventures were part of a social movement seeking to take

control of food production away from agro-food corporations, and

put it into the hands of smaller operators, communities, coops and

urban neighborhoods (Belasco 1989; Buck et al 1997; Goodman 1999).Reflecting the movements social ideals, organic food was distributed

primarily through small-market or non-profit mechanisms, fostering

direct connections between producers and consumers (Raynolds 2004).

With the corporatization of organics, proponents of food democracy

have been forced to rethink strategies for resisting the unsustainabilities

and inequities associated with industrial food production and distribu-

tion, and transforming the food system. This involves politicizing the

food system: pushing the notion that access to safe and nutritious foodis a basic righta notion that fundamentally contradicts the corporate

vision where food is principally viewed as a commodity produced

for sale (Hassanein 2003; Riches 1999)and using the concept of

food democracy to create new political spaces where agricultural

producers and consumers can act as citizens. On a pragmatic level, food

democracy is about creating alternative mechanisms for individuals and

communities to produce and procure food sustainably. Food democracy

encourages the expansion of organic agricultural production techniques,

but with greater attention to fair wages and living conditions for laborersand farmers (Halweil 2002; Shiva 2000). It resists cooperation with

transnational food producers and major supermarkets, and encourages

distribution mechanisms that foster meaningful interactions between

producers and consumers, such as through farmers markets, food boxes,

and CSAs (Halweil 2005). These mechanisms are thought to enable foodC 2009 The Authors



7/24


security and sovereignty by placing control over food production and

distribution in the hands of citizens rather than corporations (Riches

1999; Shiva 2000, 2003).

Localization is an important element in the vision of food democracy

(Halweil 2002, 2005).3 As Ostrom observes, local food is a unifying

theme among social movements challenging the modern agri-food

system, coming to signify all that is believed to be the antithesis

of a globally organized system where food travels great distances, is

controlled by behemoth, transnational corporations, and is wrought

with environmental, social, and nutritional hazards (2006:66; see

also Dupuis and Goodman 2005:359). Advocates for food system

localization make numerous explicit and implicit normative claims

that associate localism with democratic interpersonal relations, coop-

eration, decentralization, environmental and community sustainability,embeddedness in local systems, family farms, and resistance to global

corporate capitalism (Dupuis and Goodman 2005; Hinrichs 2003).

These themes are compatible with food democracy, but are nevertheless

susceptible to romanticized and unreflexive deployment. Scholars have

called for a de-reification of the local, arguing that eat-local activists

must carefully consider the meaning and limits of the local scale

(Belliveau 2005; Dupuis and Goodman 2005; Hinrichs 2003; Johnston

and Baker 2005), and guard against defensive localization (Hinrichs

2003:37). Localization defined as spatial proximity to the consumer maynot adequately capture energy use in food transport (Wallgren 2006),

nor necessitate equitable labor practices or meaningful interactions

between consumers and producers (Belliveau 2005). Spatial relations

of proximity also cannot be simply equated with social relationships of

democratic accountability and substantive equality, which we argue are

of primary importance to a meaningful vision of food democracy.

Mapping the Corporate-organic FoodscapeHaving discussed both the emergence of the corporate-organic

foodscape, as well as key facets of food democracy, we can now begin

to map the corporate-organic foodscape in greater detail. This section

describes a marketing aesthetic of locally scaled life that draws

on place-based ideals, while employing romanticized conceptions of

specific places, face-to-face community, and rural life. Using strategic

narratives emphasizing locality, place, and the connection between

brands and real producers this locally flavored marketing strategyis grafted onto production and distribution practices that, at least in part,

can be identified as part of globalized corporate agribusiness.

To map the corporate-organic foodscape, we conducted a discourse

and content analysis of the websites of organic brands (eg Lightlife,

The Organic Cow, Back to Nature) that have been acquired by NorthC 2009 The Authors



8/24

516 Antipode

Americas top food processors (eg Heinz, ConAgra, Kraft Foods). We

focused on acquisitions rather than the introduction of new brands

because of our interest in corporate organics use of food democracy

messages, a process that is especially visible after the transition of brand

ownership from a small company to a major transnational corporation.

We selected websites for analysis as they capture highly detailed and

comprehensive messages about the company, its products, and brand

image. Websites are identified in the marketing literature as virtual

storefronts that communicate corporate, product, and brand images, as

well as information on the brand that cannot be communicated through

product packaging and advertising (Argyriou et al Melewar 2006; Chen

2001; Singh and Dalal 1999). In short, websites are a part of integrated

marketing platforms that construct a coherent and consistent narrative

for corporate brands (Rowley 2004), that is highly amenable to empiricalstudy. While not all consumers access websites to learn about products,

websites provide a way to identify and interpret elements of the discourse

associated with corporate-organic brandsthe narratives, ideas, and

images that the purveyors of corporate organics seek to associate with

their products.

Corporate ownership was determined using a chart compiled by The

Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (Howard 2007).

This chart documents organic brand acquisitions by the top 25 North

American food processors, last updated in July 2007.4 Our sampleincludes 34 organic retail brands that are partly or wholly owned by,

or involved in strategic alliances with, these corporations. The organic

commodities sold by these companies include dairy products, processed

foods, canned produce, seeds, and tea. Some companies sell only a few

organic commodities, while others are entirely dedicated to organic

products.

Content Analysis: Assessing the Prevalence of Food

Democracy ThemesAnalysis of the websites led to the inductive identification of prominent

themes within the corporate-organic foodscape, which were then related

to values associated with food democracy. This allowed us to make

explicit the mostly implicit messages about how corporate-organic foods

were seemingly connected to locally scaled places and identifiable

individuals, rather than being part of a larger and faceless commodity

chain. We then conducted a content analysis to assess the prevalence offood democracy themes identified (Table 1).5 Because some subjective

elements of the corporate-organic foodscape could not be reliably

coded (eg feelings of simplicity and authenticity conveyed through web

design), our coding provides conservative counts of food democracy

themes used in corporate-organic foodscapes.C 2009 The Authors



9/24


Table1:

Fooddemocracythemesidentifiedinc

orporateorganics

Parent

Brand

Referenceto

Useofan

Specific

Personalstories

Connection

Explicit

corporation

sm

all/humble

ourstory

geographic

offounders/

tofamily

connectionto

b

eginnings

narrative

references

employe

es

farms

par

entcorporation

Cargill+

FrenchMeadows

CocaCola

Odwalla

Con-Agra

Lightlife

DeanFoods

Alta-Dena

DeanFoods

HorizonOrganic

DeanFoods

TheOrganicCow

DeanFoods

Whitewave/Silk

GeneralMills

CascadianFarms

GeneralMills

MuirGlen

HC

EarthsBestOrganic

HC

ArrowheadMills

HC

Casbah

HC

CelestialSeasonings

HC

Deboles

HC

GardenofEatin

HC

HainsPureFoods

HC

HealthValley

HC

ImagineFoods

HC

SoyDream/Rice

Dream(ImagineFoods)

C 2009 The Authors



10/24

518 Antipode

Table1:

Continued

Parent

Brand

Refe

renceto

Useofan

Specific

Personalsto

ries

Connection

Explicit

corporation

small/humble

ourstory

geographic

offounders/

tofamily

connectionto

beg

innings

narrative

references

employee

s

farms

par

entcorporation

HC

NileSpice

HC

Shari-Anns

HC

Tofutown

HC

WalnutAcres

HC

WestSoy

HC

WestbraeLittle

BearandBearitos

HC

WestbraeNatural

HC

SpectrumOrganics

HersheyFoods

Dagoba

Kellogg

Kashi

Kellogg

MorningstarFarms

KraftFoods

Boca

KraftFoods

BacktoNature

MarsM&M

SeedsofChange

Pepsi

NakedJuice

Total

23

21

19

14

10

19

Percentage

68

62

56

41

29

56

:themepresent;:

themeabsent.

+CargillinvolvedinastrategicalliancewithFrenchM

eadows.

HC:Hain-Celestial.

HeinzhaspartialownershipinHain-Celestial.Hain-Celestialisalsoinvolvedinastrategicalliancew

ithCargill.

C 2009 The Authors



11/24


Codable themes that we found included the following: connection

to family farms, which were used to demonstrate an attachment to

a particular rural locale and/or to symbolically connect consumption

of the brand with an idealized agrarian mode of life (29%); personal

stories of founders or employees, which worked to humanize the

commodity, and suggest a sense of a locally scaled operation (41%); an

explicit emphasis on the firms small-scale, humble beginnings (68%);

the use of an Our Story narrative that also created a humanizing

effect for the corporate commodity, suggesting a local rather than

transnational scale of operation and constructing a foodscape quite

distinct from the imaginary of the faceless corporate food system (62%);

and specific geographic references to locally scaled places, which tended

to involve descriptions of the companys history in a particular locality,

even though current operations for corporate firms are clearly muchmore geographically expansive across national and transnational spaces

(56%). At least one of these themes was present in all of the brands

examined, suggesting that themes associated with food democracy are

a broadly utilized corporate-organic marketing tool.

We also examined brand websites to see if they openly acknowledged

an association with a corporate owner or strategic partner. Here we

looked to see if copyright information showed an association, if news

release sections included details of the buyout, or if pages describing

the brand history or profile acknowledged ownership or strategicpartnerships with a major food processor. We found that just over

half of the brands acknowledged corporate ownership/partnership on

their website (56%). However, of these brands, most (86%) are owned

by the Hain-Celestial company, a company that specializes in organic

and natural foods, but is partially owned by Heinz and is involved

in a strategic partnership with Cargill. Importantly, no Hain-Celestial

website mentioned an affiliation with Heinz or Cargill, and as such we

found all but three of the 34 brands (91%) did not acknowledge the fullextent of corporate ownership and partnerships.

Discourse Analysis: Putting Food Democracy

Themes to WorkGiven the diversity of products under discussion and the large scale of

corporate-organic operations, our content analysis revealed a substantial

presence of food democracy themes. To better understand the ideological

work occurring in the corporate-organic foodscape, discourse analysis

was used to demonstrate the construction of a narrative focused onspecific places, humble origins, as well as face-to-face social and labour

relations. For instance, many organic brands, such as Arrowhead Mills,

Horizon Organic, Cascadian Farms, and Dagoba provide a romanticized

description of a specific locality where the company began, whether it

was on a specific farm, in a particular rural region of the United States,C 2009 The Authors



12/24

520 Antipode

or a humble store located in a certain city or town. Invoking a specific

geographic place is often done in conjunction with an emphasis on the

small-scale nature of the operation, at least in its original incarnation, and

most often with no mention of the firms current corporate ownership.

Arrowhead Mills, for example, provides a map of the exact location

of the founding office in Texas and includes the following description,

which is emblematic of the Our Story feature found on many websites:

Arrowhead Mills was founded over 40 years ago in a tin roofed

building in the Texas panhandle by Frank Ford. Frank believed

synthetic pesticides and herbicides weakened crop varieties, broke

down resistance to disease and pests, and ultimately, polluted the food

chain. He put his life savings down on a tractor and set out to farm

organically grown corn and wheat. With a stone mill he ground his

harvest and delivered it to local stores from the back of his pickuptruck (Arrowhead Mills 2007:para 1).

References to highly specific geographic locations, and the metonymic

identification of the company with a single individual that we can know

on a first name basis, fosters an image of a company rooted in locally

scaled places, engaged in personalized transactions, and dedicated

to ecological principles, even when these roots have long been

transcended in the process of corporate consolidation and expansion.

Similarly, to maintain the image of a connection to a locally scaledplace of food production, some brands prominently feature home

farms or factories designed for public tours. As part of its proud

history, Cascadian Farms website details the companys origins on a

single farm in the Upper Skagit Valley of Washingtons North Cascade

Mountains. The corporate buyout of Cascadian Farm (it was bought

by General Mills in 2000) is briefly noted, but what is emphasized is

the home farm as a real placea working, active, productive farm

that can be viewed online and visited in person (Cascadian Farms 2007:

para 1). However, even Cascadian Farms corporate founder, Gene Kahn,admitted to journalist Michael Pollan that the Skagit Valley farm is a PR

farm for General Mills (Pollan 2006a:145), not a farm that produces

goods for Cascadian Farms internationally distributed commodities.

Physical sites such as the Cascadian demonstration farm project an

image of locally embedded and publicly accessible operations, but are

fundamentally disconnected from the actual industrialized, large-scale

operations where food is grown, processed, and packaged, as well as

the geographically dispersed commodity chains.Of course, the social constructions of the corporate foodscape are

open to contestation, and corporate organics in particular is a dynamic

hybridized entity. The view that corporate-organic marketing is no more

than an ideological veil for transnational agribusiness, while containing

some truth, is too simple. Marketing campaigns can be deconstructed,

C 2009 The Authors



13/24


and advertisements and websites can be read critically, and it is clear

that many food analysts and at least some eaters are aware of the

disjuncture between the claims embedded in corporate marketing and

actual conditions of production. Corporations may respond to criticisms

by changing their material practices and/or the discursive framing or

marketing of their products. Thus The Organic Cow of Vermont changed

its name to The Organic Cow in April 2006, after critics challenged

its claim to be a Vermont-based company when it is headquartered

in Boulder, Colorado (Totten 2004).6 Yet despite this challenge, the

website for The Organic Cow continues to describe the companys

Vermont origins, and outlines its support for Vermont family farms

(The Organic Cow nd). Similarly, the producer profiles page on its

website describes two farms, both located in Vermont (The Organic Cow

ndb). These messages work together to construct a marketing discourseimbued with localism, and as instances of integrated and doubtless

carefully constructed marketing campaigns, provide insight into the

kinds of affective associations that transnational food corporations think

consumers want to associate with organic food.

The local scale and personalized relations can be seen as a rhetorical

proxy for socially embedded and just labour relationsanother keystone

of food democracy. Food sourced from the global South, however,

presents distinct challenges in this regard, given the deep structures

of global inequality. For example, the Dagoba website explains that itschocolate comes almost exclusively from small farms and co-ops but

notes that when a higher-producing farm estate was discovered, we

saw how equitable this farm was and tasted their amazing cacao [and]

we were hooked. This partnership has yielded exquisite cacao, a better

quality of life for cacao workers and their families, and the preservation

of many plant, animal and insect species in the face of environmental

degradation (Dagoba 2007:para 2). The Dagoba website then provides

testimonials from current farm employees, which show the farm to bea relatively benevolent work environment, but simultaneously reveal

deeply ingrained hierarchies and paternalism at odds with the ideals of

food democracy:

Always when I needed something, the bosses reached out their hand

. . . The bosses treat us very well. They do not exploit the workers.

Therefore I would like to offer my gratefulness for the treatment

received . . . Don Hugo . . . is not a boss like so many who are always

punishing or complaining or abusing the workers with bad words.

(Dagoba 2007:para 79)

For corporate organics sourced from the global North, the idea of

buying food from a family farmer is prevalenta theme which reflects

deeply seated North American ideals of agrarianism (Guthman 2004a).

Horizon Organic, for example, emphasizes that: [f]amily farms hold

C 2009 The Authors



14/24

522 Antipode

a very special place in our company (Horizon Organic 2006:para 1).

Corporate-organic marketing links its products not only with farms, but

also with specific people working for the companyemployees, farmer-

suppliers, and even consumers. Spectrum Organics website similarly

explains that: Here at Spectrum we recognize that the sum of our parts is

greater than the whole. That means we value every individual involved

whether the family olive farmers from the Cretan Agri-Environmental

Coop who make Spectrums Organic Greek Olive Oil or Kristy in

Quality Control who makes sure the caps fit tight. Youll soon be able

to check out their profiles and stories here, or add one of your own

youre Spectrum too! (Spectrum Organics nd:para 1). These narratives,

along with links to employee profiles, represent an effort to humanize

the process of commodity exchange, even if the commodity chain

is globalized and the production process is industrialized. While thecompanys website demonstrates responsiveness to consumer demand,

it is not clear what youre Spectrum too! actually means in terms of

food democracycan a profit-driven company in strategic partnership

with food conglomerates like Heinz and Cargill meaningfully devolve

control over the food system to Spectrum consumers?

The question should not be seen as entirely rhetorical, but as a

push to discuss the pragmatic implications and contradictions for this

type of humanizing discourse in the corporate-organic foodscape

especially if we are to take seriously the idea that the corporate-organic marketing constitutes a hybridized identity that both opens and

closes political opportunities. The contradictions and possibilities are

perhaps best revealed when corporate-organic brands explicitly try to

engage consumers in specific projects of food politicseven when these

projects contradict the imperatives of industrial food production. The

Kashi brand of cereals and crackers (owned by Kelloggs), for instance,

has a page on its website dedicated to designing personal challenges

for consumers and employees. Included among these challenges is aninjunction to Discover a local farmers market, because [l]ocally

grown foods are not only beneficial for the environment, theyre often a

lot fresher and cheaper too. Then, theres the added bonus of supporting

local businesses. Make an effort this week to find out where and when

your communitys next local farmers market takes place. Plan a trip

(Kashi 2007:para 1).

The apparent contradiction between the basic purpose of the Kashi

siteto promote a brand that sells processed commodities made with

grains sourced globally and distributed through global commoditychainsand the politics of local food provisioning, supports the view

that corporate organics represent a complex case of hybridization rather

than a simple, black and white instance of ideological obfuscation. One

way to understand this contradiction would be to note that within the

hybrid corporate-organic foodscape, there is space for a core of corporateC 2009 The Authors



15/24


food provisioning, as well as a periphery of food democracy projects. In

addition, we could observe that the particular types of products sold by

Kashiand even Kelloggs more generallyare not frequently found

at farmers markets. So in this particular instance, support for farmers

markets might be seen as a less threatening motif of food democracy (or

even eat-local more narrowly) than, say, committing to eat exclusively

within a 100-mile radius (Smith and McKinnon 2007).

A different, but related response would focus on the differing

conceptualizations of the farmers market on offer. In the vision of

food democracy, farmers markets are a core site where the relations

between food producers and consumers are concretized; the force of

the food democracy vision lies in the fact that these relations are

humanized, rather than objectified or commodified. This distinction

between humanized and objectified relationsthe essential distinctionon which the Marxist category of reification is foundedin turn grounds

the possibility of subjective agency (Loftus 2006). As these relations are

recognized as socially produced rather than naturally givenor in other

words as they are defetishizedgreater possibilities for democratically

remaking those relations are opened. The Kashi website, by contrast,

presents farmers markets as a consumer choice that exists within the

corporate-organic foodscape. The injunctions to discover and Plan a

trip to the farmers market situates this environment as something more

akin to a novel consumption object, rather than a site in which socialrelations are negotiated and community and citizenship are generated.

To make farmers markets a democratic food issue and part of a larger

struggle for universal food rightsrather than an elite niche market

where markets are available for only a few hours or one day per

week and accessible mainly to affluent consumersrequires more than

passive consumer consumption, but mandates active participation of

citizens organizations, social movements, and producers, as well as

state involvement. More generally, for food democracy projects to avoidbecoming yuppie chow excursions that map onto class hierarchies

(Guthman 2003:55), we require active and ongoing citizen attempts to

democratize and defetishize the food systema topic to which we now

turn.

De-Fetishization and the Limits of Consumer RegulationTo recap, our discourse and content analysis suggest that many elements

of the food democracy movementparticularly the most recent, eat-local variantshave been taken up and woven into the marketing dis-

course of the corporate-organic foodscape. These marketing narratives

fetishize locality and obscure spatially dispersed commodity chains as

well as the corporate ownership structures antithetical to democratically

controlled food systems. The attempt by transnationalized agribusinessC 2009 The Authors



16/24

524 Antipode

to recuperate or preserve a connection to locally scaled placesalong

with the specific farmers stories and humble, small-scale operations

associated with local foodrecapitulates the more general dilemma of

corporate-organic foodscapes, where ideals of sustainability and social

justice grind against the drive toward mass production and consumption

through spatially expansive distribution networks.

Food analysts have documented an ongoing debate between small-

scale local organics and corporate long-distance organics (Fromartz

2006; Pollan 2006a). The corporate-organic foodscape might seem to

confound this distinction, insofar as it incorporates local themes into the

messages used to sell long-distance corporate products. At one level, it

could be argued that the corporate-organic foodscapes usage of food

democracy themes constructs a sense of foods origins that is largely

divorced from material, social, and ecological considerations, and is thusa fetishized one: local places are understood in a reified fashion, with

human and ecological communities romanticized, and the real ensemble

of ecological and social relations underlying the commodity obscured.

While there is some truth to this view, we need to look beyond simply

exposing the hypocrisy of globalized agribusinesses, and explore how

this particular form of commodity fetishism arises, and what flags it

raises for food democracy projects. In other words, we must ask what

does it mean when organic foods are sold using the food democracy

discourse of local embeddedness?As organics become mainstreamed and corporatized, the focus

on place and locality in the marketing of corporate-organic brands

suggests that unique localities and thus unique food experiences are

still possible, a theme that works against the increasing sameness

and homogenization in the corporate foodscape more widely. The sheer

range of corporate-organic products on the one hand provides consumers

with the benefits of cosmopolitan globalization, while on the other, the

marketing of these products seeks to communicate a sense of inhabiting(or perhaps more precisely, consuming) locally embedded places or a

distinct socio-ecological community. Corporate organics offers a world

of multiple local products shipped globally. But it is important to ask

to what extent it can deliver on what it promises, and in particular, to

what extent its objectives clash with the ideals of food democracy.

Images and messages associated with place, locality, and real

producers do seem compatible with food democracy ideals, yet

become more problematic when we consider how these messages have

been produced within a corporate foodscape designed to maximizeprofitability through long-distance commodity chains, economies of

scale, and centralized corporate control. The corporate vision necessarily

sees food as a commodity, or in other words, a vehicle for the

accumulation of value. The concept of food democracy, however, defines

food as a life good that should ideally exist within democratic control inC 2009 The Authors



17/24


the commons.7 What the corporate-organic foodscape arguably provides

is thus a simulation of place, locality, and humanized producers: images

of precisely those things that are destroyed by capitalisms tendency to

subsume everything to the law of value. In this view, if corporate organics

represent a bridge between corporate agriculture and food democracy,then they are in fact a fetishized link with an era, and a localized form

of social exchange, that predates globalized capitalism.

It is this fetishized relationship that illustrates the crucial limitations

of corporate organics, as well as the potential pitfalls for newer iterations

of food democracy such as the eat-local movement. Corporate organics

attempts to bridge the two worlds require that food democracy be

identified as a product with particular reified features, whether this is

organic (defined in terms of non-synthetic inputs), local (defined

as specific geographical locations and/or geographical proximity),small-scale (defined as involving identifiable individuals), or some

combination of these features. Without denying that products with these

features may be more ecologically sustainable than their conventional

counterparts, as long as these features in and of themselves are taken to

be a static index of food democracy, then the conception of democracy

here remains thin and staticit is a vision closely identified with

consumerisms ideals of individual choice and voting with your

pocketbook, and resists the more challenging elements of democratic

process, such as moving towards decentralized ownership structures and

creating non-commodified social and economic relationships around

food.

While consumer-based activity is recognized as an important source

of social change (Miller 1995; Stolle et al 2005), the contradictions and

limitations of consumer-based forms of political action are increasingly

well documented, theorized, and linked to neoliberal agendas (Freidberg

2004; Goodman 2004:909; Guthman 2007:263; Johnston 2008). Work

by Barnett et al (2005) casts doubt on the assumption that ethicalshopping is a straightforward affair, or that information defetishizing

commodities automatically leads to different purchasing decisions, and

hence social change. Part of the reason for this may be precisely the

thin conception of democracy that such a view of consumer-based

social change entails. Because consumer identities, social relations, and

capitalist institutions are taken as pre-given, consumer-based politics

are often focused on in-store decision-making, and less concerned with

the myriad of decisions made long before shoppers confront products

on store shelves.The robustness of food democracy therefore depends less on the

ability to vote with ones dollar, and more on the capacity to

defetishize. But defetishization involves more than revealing the

real production relations that lie beneath the ideological veneer, or

exposing marketing hypocrisy. As Castree (2001) argues, followingC 2009 The Authors



18/24

526 Antipode

Jean Baudrillard, the semiology of commodity surfaces deserves to

be taken seriously as a kind of productive reality in its own righta

reality that we incorporate into our conceptualization of the foodscape

as a material and ideational realm producing corporate organics as a

hybrid entity. The point of defetishizationof the corporate foodscape

as well as of capitalist relationships more generallyis not to posit

another pre-given, essentialized understanding of the nature of social

reality, but rather to open the constitution of that social reality up to

question. In other words, it is not just a matter of revealing the reality

of corporate-organic hypocrisy, but a matter of making the social

relations of food production, distribution, and consumption transparent

and open to political contestation and transformation.

In the face of increasingly globalized agribusiness, a first step for

defetishization and democratization would be a challenge to concen-trations of corporate power that marginalize community and citizen

capacities. In the face of corporate hybridization and appropriation of

food democracy themes, new modes of discursively organized food

democracy constantly need to be developed, with past lessons kept

firmly in mind. The challenges of creating new citizen-based modes

of engagement, versus a menu of new, guilt-free shopping options

for affluent consumers, should not be underestimated. Conceptions of

farmers markets or CSAs that see participants as individual clients or

consumers (particularly in urbanized settings, where these can operateas a boutique mode of food procurement), work to reproduce a mode

of political engagement grounded in individual consumer choice and

favoring elite social classes, rather than aiming for the conscious

re-constitution of more equitable, democratic, and sustainable socio-

ecological relations in the food system.

Conclusion

Our mapping of the corporate-organic foodscape illustrates that thebiggest and best-selling organic brands have adopted and fetishized key

themes from a vision of food democracy. Brand websites are heavily

imbued with the imagery of specific places, family farms and rural

landscapes, and personalized narratives. These have become a key

marketing feature, even if they have little relationship to the long-

distance commodity chains and centralized ownership structures that

also characterize corporate agribusiness.

The corporate expansion and industrialization of organics has raised

the possibility of the organic label losing the public trust (DeLind2000:204), and the emphasis on local places and people in corporate

organics can in part be explained as an adaptation to accommodate

resistance to emerging public critiques. Corporate-organic marketing

strategies provide a commodified way to consume locality (rural

Vermont dairy products, or olive oil from Cretan family farms), andC 2009 The Authors



19/24


respond to anxieties about placelessness that accompany globalized

production processes.

The inclusion of food democracy themes in corporate-organic

advertising presents real challenges for food democracy movements.

For food system activists, it raises the question of how best to make

food democracy projects an attractive option in a sea of corporate

commodities, many of which seem to offer the promise of a locally

embedded, socially just food system. While it is important for food

system activists to think strategically, to pose the question exclusively

as a concern of market differentiation risks missing an essential point:

that food democracy is not simply a product to be marketed. One way

of understanding the corporate appropriation of food democracy themes

is to recognize that the desires for humanized socio-ecological relations

have public resonance, and that corporate-organic marketing campaignsmay open up further spaces for the articulation of those desires. In

addition to encouraging greater attention to ecological stewardship,

food democracy also entails the opportunity to realize those desires

through the collective constitution of the relations of food production,

distribution, and consumption. Food system sustainability needs to

be seen as much more than a set of ecological standards easily met

by discerning consumers: it is a fundamentally political project with

obligatory cultural, social, and ideological dimensions.

Just as food democracy needs to be conceptualized as both anecological and political project, an additional challenge is the simul-

taneous embrace and transcendence of localism (Hinrichs 2003:34).

While proximity is an important starting point for a food system,

particularly since re-localization can provide manageable opportunities

for civic engagement (Allen 2004:207; Hendrickson and Heffernan

2002:364366), for defetishization to work all the way down into

food democracy requires that we let go of a local that fetishizes

emplacement as intrinsically just (DuPuis and Goodman 2005:364).Advocates of a new politics of scale call for a reflexive localism which

avoids defensive xenophobiait is rooted in place, but simultaneously

looks outwards to establish solidarity and equality translocally, and

even transnationally as in the case of fair-trade (Allen 2004:176177;

Castree 2004; DuPuis and Goodman 2005; Goodman 2004; Grenfell

2006:241242; Johnston et al 2006). In other words, while the local

scale may be appropriate in some cases (eg progressive community

projects), in other cases governance and ownership issues may be more

effectively organized at the regional or state scale, where demands forfood sovereignty in the international political economy can be negotiated

(Allen 2004:175; Johnston and Baker 2005).

While the challenges facing food democracy are significant, it is

politically and analytically important to avoid deterministic conclusions.

The rise of corporate organics is in part a response to the feelingC 2009 The Authors



20/24

528 Antipode

that consumers are implicated in ecosystem crisis and globalized

networks of exploitation with every trip to the grocery store (see Le

Billon 2006), and embedded within a political economic system that

provides a profusion of consumer choices which contribute to feelings

of disorientation (Iyengar and Lepper 2000; Jameson 1991). The rise

of corporate organics appears compatible with a story of capitalist co-

optation, but, as we have emphasized, this is not simply a story about how

genuine alternative practices are annulled by corporate appropriation.

The articulation of food democracy themes in the marketing of corporate

organics speaks to the powerful social meanings of food democracy

themeseating locally, supporting local growers, organizing production

on a manageable scale. Food democracy activities attempt to channel

these themes through non-commodified programs, while marketers

produce similar narratives to sell their products. A process of corporateappropriation is indeed occurring, yet the meanings and social critiques

within these marketing messages may escape the authors intentions.

The feeling of being lost in the supermarket can also work to motivate

eaters to search for meaningful alternatives, and think beyond a political-

economic and ideological foodscape that favors corporate agribusiness.

Most crucially, this collective re-thinking of the industrial food system

can, and must, motivate a collective challenge to the neoliberal reliance

on consumer choice as the optimal means of regulating how and what

we eat.

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank anonymous Antipode reviewers for their useful

comments on this paper. Other useful feedback was provided by commentators at

meetings of the Canadian Communications Association (2006) and the Social Research

in Organic Agriculture conference in Guelph, ON (2007). This research was undertaken,

in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program.

Endnotes1 One British study estimates that a shopping basket with 26 imported organic goods

travels up to 241,000 km before reaching the consumer (Jones 2001:1).2 In California, organic agriculture began as industry with large corporate-owned

organic farms and few smallholders (Guthman 2004a).3 While the parameters of locality are debated by eat-local activists, the term generally

refers to food that travels hundreds (rather than thousands) of miles from farm to fork;

local foods can be transported to market within a few hours of truck transport, rather

than a few days of transnational air-transport supply chains (see Halweil 2005).4 Our sample of brands, generated in October 2007, is slightly different because of the

absence of some product websites (eg Fruiti de Bosca and Millinas Finest).5 The themes observed on the websites reviewed speak to the nature of the consumer

desires that the corporate foodscape seeks to satisfy. Because we see a dialectical

relationship between corporate marketing and consumer desires, a reception analysis

of consumer interpretations of the corporate-organic foodscape would be a useful

complementary piece of research to our corporate discourse analysis, but one which

is beyond the scope of this paper.

C 2009 The Authors



21/24


6 The Organic Cow of Vermont was originally based in Stowe, Vermont, but the

headquarters was moved to Colorado once it was bought by Dean Foods in 1999.7 We are thinking here, for example, of community gardens, publicly subsidized good

food boxes, and the myriad other community food security projects that prioritize

sustainable, culturally appropriate access to food for low-income populations (Johnston

and Baker 2005; Norberg-Hodge et al 2002).

ReferencesAllen P (2004) Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American

Agrifood System. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press

Argyriou E, Kitchen P J and Melewar T C (2006) The relationship between

corporate websites and brand equity: A conceptual framework and research agenda.

International Journal of Market Research 48(5):575599

Arrowhead Mills (2007) Arrowhead mills history. http://www.arrowheadmills.

com/about-us/history.php Accessed 30 October 2007Barnett C, Cloke P, Clarke N and Malpass A (2005) Consuming ethics: Articulating the

subjects and spaces of ethical consumption. Antipode 37(1):2345

Belasco W (1989) Appetite for Change. How the Counterculture Took on the Food

Industry, 19661988. New York: Pantheon Books

Belliveau S (2005) Resisting global, buying local: Goldschmidt revisited. Great Lakes

Geographer 12(1):4553

Born B and Purcell M (2006) Avoiding the local trap: Scale and food systems in planning

research. Journal of Planning Education and Research 26:195207

Brecher J, Costello T and Smith B (2000) Globalization from Below. Boston: South End

Press

Buck D, Getz C and Guthman J (1997) From farm to table: The organic vegetable

commodity chain of northern California. Sociologia Ruralis 37(1):320

Canadian Organic Growers (2006) Organic quick facts. http://www.cog.ca/ orgquick-

facts.htm Accessed 24 April 2006

Cascadian Farms (2007) The heart of Cascadian Farm. http://www.cascadianfarm.

com/products/homefarm.aspx Accessed 30 October 2007

Castree N (2001) Commodity fetishism, geographical imaginations and imaginative

geographies. Environment and Planning A 33:15191524

Castree N (2004) Differential geographies: Place, indigenous rights and local

resources. Political Geography 23:133167

Chen S (2001) Assessing the impact of the internet on brands. Journal of BrandManagement8:288302

Cook I and Crang P (1996) The world on a plate: Culinary culture, displacement and

geographical knowledges. Journal of Material Culture 1:131153

Dagoba (2007) Origins: Costa Rica. http://www.dagobachocolate.com/origins/costa_

rica.asp Accessed 30 October 2007

DeLind L (2000) Transforming organic agriculture into industrial organic products:

Reconsidering national organic standards. Human Organization 59(2):198208

DuPuis E M and Goodman D (2005) Should we go home to eat? Toward a reflexive

politics of localism. Journal of Rural Studies 21(3):359371

ERS-USDA (Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agricul-ture) (2005) Data sets: Organic production overview. http://www.ers.usda.gov/

data/organic/ Accessed 24 April 2006

Frank T (1998) The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counter-culture, and the Rise

of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Freidberg S (2004) The ethical complex of organic food. Environment and Planning D:

Space and Society 22:513531

C 2009 The Authors



22/24

530 Antipode

Friedmann H (2007) Scaling up: Bringing public institutions and food service

corporations into the project for a local, sustainable food system in Ontario.

Agriculture and Human Values 24:389398

Fromartz S (2006) Organic Inc. Natural Foods and How They Grew. Toronto: Harcourt

Inc

Goldman M (1998) Introduction: The political resurgence of the commons. In MGoldman (ed) Privatizing Nature. Political Struggles for the Global Commons

(pp 119). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

Goodman D (1999) Agro-food studies in the age of ecology: Nature, corporeality,

bio-politics. Sociologia Ruralis 39(1):1738

Goodman D and Goodman M (2001) Sustaining foods: Organic consumption and

the socio-ecological imaginary. In M Cohen and J Murphy (eds) Exploring

Sustainable Consumption: Environmental Policy and the Social Sciences (pp 97

119). Amsterdam: Pergamon

Goodman M (2004) Reading fair trade: Political ecological imaginary and the moral

economy of fair trade foods. Political Geography 23:891915

Grenfell D (2006) Beyond the local and the global: Scales of resistance, repression, and

sustainability. In J Johnston, M Gismondi and J Goodman (eds) Natures Revenge:

Reclaiming Sustainability in an Age of Corporate Globalization (pp 225244).

Peterborough: Broadview

Guthman J (2003) Fast food/organic food: Reflexive tastes and the making of yuppie

chow. Social and Cultural Geography 4(1):4558

Guthman J (2004a) Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California.

Berkeley: University of California Press

Guthman J (2004b) Back to the land: The paradox of organic food standards.

Environment and Planning A 36(3):511528

Guthman J (2007) Commentary on teaching food: Why I am fed up with Michael Pollanet al. Agriculture and Human Values 24:261264

Halweil B (2002) Home grown: The case for local food in a global market. WorldWatch

Paper No. 163. Washington, DC: WorldWatch Institute

Halweil B (2005) The rise of food democracy. UN Chronicle 42(1):7173

Hassanein N (2003) Practicing food democracy: A pragmatic politics of transformation.

Journal of Rural Studies 19(1):7786

Hendrickson M and Heffernan W D (2002) Opening spaces through relocalization:

Locating potential resistance in the weaknesses of the global food system. Sociologia

Ruralis 42(4):347369

Hinrichs C C (2003) The practice and politics of food system localization. Journal ofRural Studies 19(1):3345

Horizon Organic (2006) For farmers: Our community of farms. http://www.

horizonorganic.com/site/forfarmers/community.html Accessed 30 October 2007

Howard P (2005) Who owns what. http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/

corporate-ownership.html Accessed 7 June 2006

Howard P (2007) Organic industry structure: Acquisitions by the top 25 food processors

of North America. http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehowardp/organicindustry.html Accessed

30 October 2007

Ingram M and Ingram H (2005) Creating credible edibles: The organic agriculture

movement and the emergence of the U.S. federal organic standards. In D S Meyer,V Jenness and H Ingram (eds) Routing the Opposition. Social Movements, Public

Policy and Democracy (pp 121148). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis

Iyengar S and Lepper M (2000) When choice is de-motivating: Can one desire too much

of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(6):9951006

Jameson F (1991) Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham:

Duke University Press

C 2009 The Authors



23/24


Johnston J (2003) Who cares about the commons? Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

14(4):141

Johnston J (2008) The citizenconsumer hybrid: Ideological tensions and the case of

Whole Foods Market. Theory and Society 37(3):229270

Johnston J and Baker L (2005) Eating outside the box: FoodShares good food box and

the challenge of scale. Agriculture and Human Values 22(3):313325Johnston J, Gismondi M and Goodman J (2006) Politicizing exhaustion: Eco-social

crisis and the geographic challenge for cosmopolitans. In J Johnston, M Gismondi

and J Goodman (eds) Natures Revenge: Reclaiming Sustainability in an Age of

Corporate Globalization (pp 1335). Peterborough: Broadview

Jones A (2001) Eating Oil: Food Supply in a Changing Climate. London: SustainThe

Alliance for Better Food and Farming, http://www.sustainweb.org/chain_fm_eat.asp

Accessed 5 May 2006

Kashi (2007) Discover a local farmers market. http://www.kashi.com/challenges/35

Accessed 30 October 2007

Lang T (1999) Food policy for the 21st century: Can it be both radical and reasonable?

In M Koc, R MacRae, L J A Mougeot and J Welsh (eds) For Hunger-Proof Cities:

Sustainable Urban Food Systems (pp 216224). Ottawa: International Development

Research Centre

Latour B (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Lappe F M and Lappe A (2002) Hopes Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. New

York: Penguin

Le Billon P (2006) Fatal transactions: Conflict diamonds and the (anti)terrorist

consumer. Antipode 38(4):788801

Loftus A (2006) Reification and the dictatorship of the water meter. Antipode

38(5):10231045Miller D (1995) Consumption as the vanguard of history: A polemic way of introduction.

In D Miller (ed) Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies (pp 157).

New York: Routledge

Mitchell D (2001) The lure of the local: Landscape studies at the end of a troubled

century. Progress in Human Geography 25(2):269281

Norberg-Hodge H, Merrifield T and Gorelick S (2002) Bringing the Food Economy

Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press

Oberholtzer L, Dimitri C and Greene C (2005) Price Premiums Hold on

as U.S. Organic Produce Market Expands. Electronic Outlook Report from

the Economic Research Service. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/vgs/may05/VGS30801/VGS30801.pdf Accessed 15 May 2006

Ostrom M (2006) Everyday meanings of local food: Views from home and field.

Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society 37(1):65

78

Pollan M (2006a) The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New

York: Penguin

Pollan M (2006b) Mass natural. New York Times Magazine 4 June 4

Raynolds L T (2004) The globalization of organic agro-food networks. World

Development32(5):725743

RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA) (2003) Who owns organic?The global status, prospects and challenges of a changing organic market.

http://www.rafiusa.org/pubs/OrganicReport.pdf Accessed 15 May 2006

Riches G (1999) Reaffirming the right to food in Canada: The role of community-based

food security. In M Koc, R MacRae, L J A Mougeot and J Welsh (eds) For Hunger-

Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems (pp 203207). Ottawa: International

Development Research Centre

C 2009 The Authors



24/24

532 Antipode

Rowley J (2004) Online branding. Online Information Review 28(2):131138

Sanders R (2006) A market road to sustainable agriculture? Ecological agriculture, green

food and organic agriculture in China. Development and Change 37(1):201226

Schor J (2007) Consumer-topia: Envisioning a new culture of consuming. American

Sociological Association Annual Meeting, 11 August, New York, USA

Shiva V (2000) Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Cambridge:South End Press

Shiva V (2003) Food democracy v. food dictatorship: The politics of genetically

modified food.Z Magazine 16(4), http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Apr2003/shiva0403.html

Accessed 26 September 2007

Singh S N and Dalal N P (1999) Web home pages as advertisements. Communications

of the ACM 42(8):9198

Smith A and McKinnon J B (2007) The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Toronto:

Random House

Spectrum Organics (nd) I am Spectrum. http://www.spectrumorganics.com/?id=24

Accessed 30 October 2007

Stolle D, Hooghe M and Micheletti M (2005) Politics in the supermarket: Political

consumerism as a form of political participation. International Review of Political

Science 26(3):245269

The Economist (2006) Can you really change the world just by buying certain

foods? 7 December, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_

id=8380592 Accessed 13 September 2007

The Organic Cow (nda) A history of caring. http://www.theorganiccow.com/

organicoverview/history.html Accessed 7 June 2006

The Organic Cow (ndb) Howacres. http://www.theorganiccow.com/organicoverview/pro

file.html Accessed 7 June 2006

Thompson C J and Coskuner-Balli G (2007) Countervailing market responses tocorporate co-optation and the ideological recruitment of consumption communities.

Journal of Consumer Research 34:135152

Totten S (2004) Just who is milking Vermont? Vermont Guardian, http://www.

vermontguardian.com/ Accessed 10 May 2006

Wallgren C (2006) Local or global food markets: A comparison of energy use for

transport. Local Environment11:233251

Watts D, Ilbery B and Maye D (2005) Making re-connections in agro-food geography:

Alternative systems of food provision. Progress in Human Geography 29(1):2240

Winson A (2004) Bringing political economy into the debate on the obesity epidemic.

Agriculture and Human Values 21(4):299312Yasmeen G (1996) Plastic-bag housewives and postmodern restaurants? Public and

private in Bangkoks foodscape. Urban Geography 17(6):526544

Zukin S (1991) Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley

University of California Press

Johnston 2009 Lost in Supermarket

Documents

Transcript of Johnston 2009 Lost in Supermarket