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Food, Farms, and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops

by Chaia Heller

Duke University Press, 2012
eISBN: 978-0-8223-9480-8 | Cloth: 978-0-8223-5118-4 | Paper: 978-0-8223-5127-6
Library of Congress Classification HD1947.H45 2013
Dewey Decimal Classification 338.1844

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The Confédération Paysanne, one of France's largest farmers' unions, has successfully fought against genetically modified organisms (GMOs), but unlike other allied movements, theirs has been led by producers rather than consumers. In Food, Farms, and Solidarity, Chaia Heller analyzes the group's complex strategies and campaigns, including a call for a Europe-wide ban on GM crops and hormone-treated beef, and a protest staged at a McDonald's. Her study of the Confédération Paysanne shows the challenges small farms face in a postindustrial agricultural world. Heller also reveals how the language the union uses to argue against GMOs encompasses more than the risks they pose; emphasizing solidarity has allowed farmers to focus on food as a cultural practice and align themselves with other workers. Heller's examination of the Confédération Paysanne's commitment to a vision of alter-globalization, the idea of substantive alternatives to neoliberal globalization, demonstrates how ecological and social justice can be restored in the world.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Chaia Heller is Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College. She is the author of The Ecology of Everyday Life: Rethinking the Desire for Nature.

REVIEWS

"Food, Farms, and Solidarity is an excellent study of one of the most fascinating social movements of the contemporary era and its struggle against GM crops. Academics and activists interested in agrarian, environmental, and food justice issues as well as (trans)national social movements should read this book."—Saturnino M. Borras Jr., coeditor of Transnational Agrarian Movements Confronting Globalization

"Food, Farms, and Solidarity is an excellent study of one of the most fascinating social movements of the contemporary era and its struggle against GM crops. Academics and activists interested in agrarian, environmental, and food justice issues, as well as transnational social movements, should read this book."—Saturnino M. Borras Jr., coeditor of Transnational Agrarian Movements Confronting Globalization

"Chaia Heller makes a compelling argument about a set of very important topics in the food/environment arena. Given the continued relevance of those topics, the prominence of the main protagonists of the story in the international scene, and the engaging writing style, the book should be of interest to a broad audience of students, academics, NGO people, and activists."—Arturo Escobar, author of Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes

“[Heller’s] engaging book contains many insights into the surprisingly divergent fates of French and U.S. agricultural interest groups. . . . [H]er tale of earthy farmers becoming postmodern ideological entrepreneurs makes for fun reading.”

-- Andrew Moravcsik Foreign Affairs

“Heller’s dramatic narrative tells a story filled with intimate anecdotes and colorful characters...making a rather complex history of farmers’ unions and French agricultural policy come alive while sustaining her readers’ interest.”

-- A. B. Audant Choice

“This book presents a fascinating and in-depth case study of a French agricultural union, the Confederation paysanne, surveying its history, ideology, leadership, and political activism...this is a highly original, insightful, and exhaustively researched account that presents in fine detail one of the key battle lines of our time.”

-- Sarah Waters French History

“Heller has written a wonderful ethnography that I find highly engaging in terms of the logic of capitalist food production under the political auspices of neoliberalism. Her book is an important contribution to food studies and anthropological theory.”

-- Robert C. Ulin American Ethnologist

"Ultimately, Heller makes a significant contribution with this study to social movement discourses and union organization in addition to food justice and environmental issues."

-- Pamela Tudge Left History

"Food, Farms, and Solidarity provides a deep and fascinating case study of Confédération Paysanne and contemporary struggles over agricultural biotechnology and food sovereignty.... Heller’s ethnographic approach makes for a compelling and accessible read, and the book would be appropriate for a topical course on food studies or social movements at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level."

-- Christopher R. Henke Contemporary Sociology

"Food, Farms and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops is an engaging ethnographic study…. The work stands as a valuable case study for social movement scholars and political ecology anthropologists."

-- Patricia A. Stapleton Agriculture and Human Values

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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