MACMILLAN Performing Farmscapes

Review “What a great book! What a great idea for a book: bringing together profound intellectual endeavour, creativity, performance, with food and farming – and above all, fun!  These are the essence of human flourishing, here interwoven with skill and scholarship to develop true food citizenship: the telling of living stories about culture, identity and hope, through farmscapes. The pandemic and climate chaos vividly show how much we need this vision.” (Elizabeth Dowler, Emeritus Professor of Food & Social Policy, University of Warwick, UK, and Member of the Food Ethics Council)  “Performing Farmscapes has a distinctive, passionate and sensitive voice―one that encourages the reader not only to follow the details of its argument but to care about the work, the people and the places that we “visit” in the case studies.  This engaging book urges our keen attention to the costs (human, environmental, economic) of the food we eat.” (Susan Bennett, Professor Emerita of English, University of Calgary, Canada) “As agricultural subsidies disappear and pressures for adaptation in land usage mount, as food security and sustainability become key global issues, Performing Farmscapes is a timely and important reflection on human agency and its impacts in rural contexts, on contemporary resistances to its excesses, and on visions for recovering productive, agricultural landscapes––on the ground, in and through creative narratives and interventionist performances.” (Mike Pearson, Professor Emeritus, Aberystwyth University, and Honorary Professor, Exeter University, UK) “Fewer and fewer of us know how our food is produced, of the challenges farmers face, and about the impact of food production on nature. Performing Farmscapes creatively interprets the considerable value of performance as a means of raising our awareness of these issues and of highlighting the influence that we, as food citizens, can have through the choices we make.” (Rosemary Collier, Professor of Life Sciences and Academic Lead for the Global Research Priority on Food, University of Warwick, UK) Product Description This book argues that the performance-based work in the featured case studies contributes to the construction of food democracy where the public takes back decision-making in shaping the food system. It explores how contemporary artists translate scientific research about local and global agricultural issues into life stories that inform and engage their audiences and, in so doing, transform passive food consumers into proactive food citizens. The pairing of performing and farmscapes (complex webs of farmlands and storylines) enables artists to use embodied practices to encourage audiences to imagine a just and sustainable agri-food system and to collaborate on making it a reality. The book arranges the case studies on a trajectory that moves from projects that foreground knowledge acquisition to ones that emphasize social engagement by creating conversations and coalitions between farming and nonfarming communities to a final one that pairs protest art and political activism to achieve legally-binding changes in the agricultural landscape.  From the Back Cover This book argues that the performance-based work in the featured case studies contributes to the construction of food democracy where the public takes back decision-making in shaping the food system. It explores how contemporary artists translate scientific research about local and global agricultural issues into life stories that inform and engage their audiences and, in so doing, transform passive food consumers into proactive food citizens. The pairing of performing and farmscapes (complex webs of farmlands and storylines) enables artists to use embodied practices to encourage audiences to imagine a just and sustainable agri-food system and to collaborate on making it a reality. The book arranges the case studies on a trajectory that moves from projects that foreground knowledge