Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents different modern food embodiments. It addresses questions of corporeality, involving greater attention to the body and the material world as distributed across materialities, where agencies emerge through practice that acts on daily intentions as well as contingency. Throughout Latin America, agroecology, food sovereignty and responsible consumption movements have demanded citizen rights from the state, while at the same time demanding degrees of autonomy from it. The book explores the unfolding agrofood assemblages and multiplicities tied to state–civil society institutional encounters over agricultural production, artisanship, and markets as well as the social viscerality of food sensations. It also explores wheat as a socio-material "public" assemblage that reveals how things acquire agency in a territory. The book then presents respective studies based on their experience as participants in urban-based efforts organized around ideals of responsible consumption.