Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Just Food: Philosophy, Justice and Food

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Just Food Philosophy, Justice and Food By J. M. Dieterle Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd.Copyright © 2015 J. M. Dieterle All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78348-386-0 Contents Acknowledgements, Introduction J. M. Dieterle, PART I: FOOD ACCESS, 1 Framing Food Justice J. Michael Scoville, 2 Food, Hunger and Property Stephen Minister, 3 Food Deserts and Lockean Property J. M. Dieterle, 4 Food Deserts, Justice and the Distributive Paradigm Jennifer Szende, PART II: FOOD SYSTEMS, 5 Food Sovereignty: Two Conceptions of Food Justice Ian Werkheiser, Shakara Tyler and Paul B. Thompson, 6 Food Sovereignty and Gender Justice: The Case of La Vía Campesina Mark Navin, 7 Food Policy, Mexican Migration and Collective Responsibility Steve Tammelleo, PART III: FOOD AND GENDER, 8 Food is a Feminist Issue Lori Watson, 9 Meat Eating and Masculinity: A Foucauldian Analysis Nancy M. Williams, 10 Food, Film and Gender Margaret Crouch, PART IV: LOCAL FOOD, 11 "Food Virtue": Can We Make Virtuous Food Choices? Nancy E. Snow, 12 Limits on Locavorism Liz Goodnick, Bibliography, Index, About the Contributors, CHAPTER 1 Framing Food Justice J. Michael Scoville The discussion of food justice norms tends to be focused on three main concerns. One is distributive issues, for example, whether all people have access to safe and healthy food, or whether everyone working within the food system is paid fairly and able to work in a safe environment. A second concern is issues of representation and political voice. Here the focus is whether all people are capable of participating in relevant decision making and the construction of public policies relating to the production, consumption and distribution of food. A third concern is the normatively significant connections between, on the one hand, the values of food and food-related practices, and on the other, collective self-determination. This third focus is often expressed in terms of food sovereignty, and has its origin in peasant social movements, notably, La Via Campesina. Discussion of these three concerns is complex, subject to ongoing disagreement and practically fraught. Different views of what justice requires always reflect particular framings of what questions or concerns are thought to be crucial. Not surprisingly, the question of which framing (or framings) is best is controversial. With this in mind, I assume it is critically important to consider sustainability as a relevant framing for any contemporary theorizing about justice. Articulating an account of food justice, specifically, in isolation from broader questions about sustainability would leave many important normative issues unaddressed. The primary aim of this chapter is to explore how our thinking about food justice norms might be guided, constrained and in general enriched if we consider these norms in relation to sustainability. A difficulty for this proposed focus is that many philosophers (among others) have viewed the concept of sustainability with suspicion. Reasons for this range from concern about sustainability being hopelessly vague and hence useless for policy, to concern that interest in sustainability is just the latest cover for business as usual and thus a betrayal of the environmental cause. While I believe such concerns are unconvincing, there is no question that sustainability is a contested concept — one that needs careful specification and defense if it is to do any work helping to frame discussions of food justice. I assume that a significant reason to care about sustainability is the worry that we are shortchanging future generations through our collective conduct, giving them less than is their due. This is partly a matter of justice, but it is also a broader question of what we ought to be doing to preserve conditions that will make life worth living in the future. With this in mind, a fundamental aim of discussions of sustainability should be to clar