ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of cultural heritage in food activism in Italy through an ethnographic case study from the city of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia. It examines whether recourse to culinary cultural heritage can advance the overriding goal of food activism: the promotion of food democracy. Cultural heritage in food includes the material, such as landrace plants, and traditional dishes as well as the immaterial, such as cuisine. Cultural heritage discourse in food activism is mobilizing support for local products, economies, and traditional knowledge about foodways, however it is not so easily inclusive of non-local people, cuisines, and cultures, nor of the laborers who produce the local foods. The chapter uses interviews and observations with the Gruppo d'acquisto solidale (GAS) Cagliari president and founding member Lucio Brughitta and other food activists to explore the connections between their activist efforts and recourse to concepts of cultural heritage.
