ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature that critically investigates that the local, in conventional food-speak, has in many instances come to mean a more sustainable, just, equitable solution to the global. It leads some scholars to famously caution against falling into the local trap speaking of the local as an objective state with inherent worth when in fact it is a social construction. The novelty of the local trap argument, rather, lies in how it synthesizes a sizable literature on the social construction of scale for example, Marstons 2000 article The Social Construction of Scale with the aforementioned agri-food literature where the ambiguous nature of local is highlighted. Richard Wilk argues that the categories local and global are actually part of the process of globalization itself. The last twenty-five years have given rise to some highly engaging, exceedingly thoughtful arguments in support of more local food systems, such as the seminal essay by Jack Kloppenburg et al, Coming to the Foodshed.
