tailieunhanh - REFASHIONING NATURE: FOOD, ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Contemporary interest in food is not confined to pleasure in its consumption, but extends in every direction: to its economic importance, the semiotics of food taste, the dangers of food additives and the politics of food security. We live in societies as dominated by food preferences as by sexual preferences, as obsessed about eating too little as by eating too much. In addition our interest in food is associated, for good and evil, with our interest in ‘nature’. As we begin to become aware that we are in a position to destroy our environment, for the first and last time, ‘nature’ has become imbued with so many virtues that the. | REFASHIONING NATURE Food Ecology and Culture David Goodman and Michael Redclift Also available as a printed book see title verso for ISBN details REFASHIONING NATURE We live in a society as dominated by food preference as by sexual preference as obsessed with eating too much as with eating too little. Food is the ultimate commodity in an economic system which depends upon the market to meet needs and influences global development and interdependence. Food from cultivation to consumption provides the chief link between humankind and the natural environment. Yet technological advances in genetics agribusiness and food processing have combined with changing patterns of diet and women s employment to challenge our perception of the natural and of our position within a natural system. At this point of dislocation global crisis and conscience over the use we make of the environment have sharpened the ideological force of Nature . Refashioning Nature analyses the apparently opposed imperatives of the industrial food system and environment. The authors argue that present means of food production processing and consumption do not satisfy the demands of both North and South resulting rather in food shortages and surpluses as well as environmental destruction. One of the major developments within the global food system has been the change in diet associated with the movement of women into the labour market. Beyond the implications for the production of food and the position of the household this transformation has had a profound effect on the way we manage the environment and what we assume and perceive is .