ABSTRACT
This paper explores the complex history of food activism by focusing on two intertwined currents of political struggle. The first has sought to transform the conventional food system by improving wages, working conditions, food safety, and environmental impacts. Here, workers have been central to struggles in agricultural fields, processing plants, restaurants, and homes. The second current has focused on developing alternative ways of doing food. Much of the organic movement, including related projects associated with back-to-the-land initiatives, counterculture cuisine, and communes, all fit within this tradition, or what we now think of as the “food movement.” The absence of workers within this tradition is notable. In tracing these complex histories, this paper explores a paradox: How is it possible, given such a rich history of activism, that the way we “do food” has in many ways been revolutionized at the same time as corporate control over the industry has intensified? How, in a sense, has the “food movement” so thoroughly succeeded and failed at the same time? In exploring this question, the paper suggests that the answer lies in the place (and decline) of labor within food activism and US politics more broadly during the post-WWII period.
