Race in the study of food

Abstract

Recent reviews of food scholarship in Progress in Human Geography have begun to engage with racial identity but have not considered the breadth of work on the subject. Once we look outside what is known as agri-food studies to research in international development, environmental history, feminist theory, cultural studies and anthropology, it is evident that a large body of research exists relating race to the production, distribution and consumption of food. However, to see how this work actually refers to race often requires reading between the lines. Authors may refer to ‘difference’, ‘alterity’ or ‘Otherness’ instead of race and some are not explicit about the theory of race upon which they draw. Consequently, it is not always evident how race matters to the study of food. This paper’s contribution is to propose how theories of race are being used in this literature. It does so by drawing on the work of geographers, but the paper seeks to engage with research outside the discipline as well. Most literature implicitly relies on the social construction of race to consider representations and performances of race in contexts of eating or producing food. A smaller body of work theorizes racial embodiment as a material process. Explicit engagement with the concept of race and its diverse theoretical foundations is important because it allows scholars to make arguments about how racism shapes food systems, to understand how race changes through food, and to consider how food might enable different theorizations of race.