ABSTRACT

This book explores the experiences, causes, and consequences of food insecurity in different geographical regions and historical eras. It highlights collective and political actions aimed at food sovereignty as solutions to mitigate suffering.

Despite global efforts to end hunger, it persists and has even increased in some regions. This book provides interdisciplinary and historical perspectives on the manifestations of food insecurity, with case studies illustrating how people coped with violations of their rights during the war-time deprivation in France; the neoliberal incursions on food supply in Turkey, Greece, and Nicaragua; as well as the consequences of radioactive contamination of farmland in Japan. This edited collection adopts an analytical approach to understanding food insecurity by examining how the historical and political situations in different countries have resulted in an unfolding dialectic of food insecurity and resistance, with the most marginalized people—immigrants, those in refugee camps, poor peasants, and so forth—consistently suffering the worst effects, yet still maintaining agency to fight back.  

The book tackles food insecurity on a local as well as a global scale and will thus be useful for a broad range of audiences, including students, scholars, and the general public interested in studying food crises, globalization, and current global issues.

chapter 2|16 pages

Causes and consequences of njaa (hunger) in the household

Food security and intimate partner violence within an informal settlement in Mombasa, Kenya

chapter 3|16 pages

Food is a gift of the earth

Food sovereignty among migrant farmworkers in rural Vermont

chapter 8|15 pages

Food security in a premodern agrarian empire

The case of Rome

chapter 10|14 pages

Bitter greens and sweet potatoes

Food practice and memories of hunger in rural China

chapter 11|17 pages

“Groveling for lentils”

The culture and memory of food scarcity in occupied France

chapter 12|17 pages

Coping with food safety risks

Information sources and responses by residents in Japan in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident