Capitalism and Its Discontents: Back-to-the-Lander and Freegan Foodways in Rural Oregon

Gross, Joan

doi:10.1080/07409710902925797

Cited by 40 publications

(51 citation statements)

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“…A variety of Vancouver divers name and refer to each other and themselves as "homebums," the "hippie crowd," the "crusty kids," the "young crowd," "punksters," the "student activist niche," and "freegans." In this way, Vancouver's divers shared some goals with the récupe's "youthful foragers" that Black (2007) observed in France, the "freegans" in rural Oregon (Gross 2009), the young divers in Australia who "confront the ethics of waste" (Edwards and Mercer 2007), and the punks in Seattle who prefer "raw and rotten" cuisine (Clarke 2004).…”

Section: Who Is Dumpster Diving? An Eclectic Groupmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Like the "scavenging pensioners" at the Porta Palazzo Market that Black (2007) describes, and the low income, urban divers that Eikenberry and Smith (2005) interview in Minneapolis, hunger and necessity are key drivers for some of Vancouver's divers. But, as noted in other dumpstering communities (e.g., Black 2007;Edwards and Mercer 2007;Gross 2009;Vaughn 2011), the drive to dive in Vancouver extends beyond factors associated with poverty. This article provides insight into a foodways practice that has emerged and explores dumpster diving as an informal system of food provisioning.…”

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confidence: 93%

“…In anthropology, the study of food and eating has historical and theoretical significance (Mintz and Du Bois 2002), and while the behavior analyzed here-retrieving and (in most cases) eating food out of the garbage or compost-may seem odd, distasteful, or even repulsive to a passerby, anthropologists have found the practice quite nuanced. Dumpster diving is an observable human behavior that has deep structural origins (Black 2007;Vaughn 2011), and is experienced by many divers as a form of challenge and defiance of food commodification systems (Belasco 2007;Edwards and Mercer 2007;Pritchett 2009;Gross 2009). When analyzed in context, diving has considerable implications for food producers, distributors, and consumers alike.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Beyond Desperation: Motivations for Dumpster™ Diving for Food in Vancouver

Carolsfeld

Erikson

2013

Food and Foodways

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In the global food system, food is considered a disposable commodity and waste is produced at extraordinarily high levels. In a number of affluent nations, including Canada, "dumpster diving" for food has emerged as an approach to food provisioning. This article is based on a research project conducted for an honors thesis that examines dumpster diving for food in Vancouver, British Columbia. While an earlier report (Miewald 2009) identified dumpster diving in Vancouver as a survival strategy for people living in poverty who experience food insecurity, research for this article reveals that motivations also extend beyond economic desperation. The data contest some common assumptions and provide explanations of people's motivations and their means of "dumpstering" in the Vancouver locale. As such, the article reveals divers' broader political, social, and economic motivations in a specific locale, enabling an exploration of some systemic contradictions of food production, distribution, provisioning, and consumption.This article explains Dumpster TM1 diving for food in Vancouver, British Columbia, and why people do it. Diving has emerged as a food provisioning practice occurring in affluent urban centers, including Canada. 2 People who provision food from dumpsters-dumpster "divers"-have transformed their own behaviors-their foodways-to take advantage of an opportunity that our global food system creates: massive levels of food waste, some of which ends up in waste receptacles referred to in North America as dumpsters.We wish to thank the dumpster divers and everyone else who shared their views, experiences, stories, and food with us.

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Section: Who Is Dumpster Diving? An Eclectic Groupmentioning

confidence: 95%

mentioning

confidence: 93%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond Desperation: Motivations for Dumpster™ Diving for Food in Vancouver

Carolsfeld

Erikson

2013

Food and Foodways

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“…The ACSH types are based on what kind of food is eliminated. Other types of vegetarians based on personal philosophies are freegans (Gross 2009), raw foodists (Russo 2008), and the separation of total vegans from dietary vegans (International Vegetarian Union 2008). Freegans attempt to live a vegan lifestyle but will depart from the philosophy when a food item will go to waste.…”

Section: Initial Eating Patterns In Developmental Vegetarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming Vegetarian: The Eating Patterns and Accounts of Newly Practicing Vegetarians

Boyle

2011

Food and Foodways

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Vegetarianism is a dynamic and fluid lifestyle that can be described as unique for each person who practices. Vegetarianism traditionally falls outside of the accepted eating patterns in Western nations; furthermore, the meat-free lifestyle can be classified as a form of positive deviance. Semistructured interviews were conducted with self-described vegetarians regarding eating patterns and motivations within the initial adoption of the lifestyle. Vegetarian vocabularies of motive were categorized according to established deviance theory referred to as accounts. This newly practicing, or developmental, stage of vegetarianism was more likely to fall on the less strict side of the vegetarian continuum for eating patterns and the motives had a propensity to be monothematic.Vegetarians are often asked why they have decided to stop eating animal products. In reality, very few people eat the same type of diet over the course of their lives. General dietary practices can shift for several reasons such as medical recommendations, religious conversion, and seasonal availability of food. Vegetarians are no different in this regard because few vegetarians maintain the same dietary practices and motivations over the course of their meatless "career" (Boyle 2007). There have been several studies looking at the reasons or motives one becomes vegetarian (Beardsworth and Keil 1992; Dietz et al. 1995;Stiles 1998;Hamilton 2000;Roth 2005). As research into the social science of food grows, this study combining the eating patterns of vegetarians with the rationalizations of new vegetarians will attempt to add to this important field. Vegetarianism is a fluid and very flexible category that can be described as self-imposed. The individual must make a conscious decision to self-identify as vegetarian in order for the construct of vegetarian to apply. Many questions arise on why a person becomes vegetarian: Does

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“…It sought to integrate personal and "lifestyle" issues into politics … And it focused on a wider range of issues that confronted the social system as a whole: health care, culture, ecology, etc. (p.119) Examples of prefigurative action, then, might include establishing or participating in alternative economic systems such as barter or gift economies (Williams, 1996;Nelson et al, 2007;Granger et al, 2010;Willer et al, 2012); critical approaches to food provision like veganism, 'freeganism', foraging and 'growing your own' (Clark, 2004;Shantz, 2005;Cherry, 2006;Edwards and Mercer, 2007;Gross, 2009;PortwoodStacer, 2012); or the Transition movement's approach to moving towards lower carbon futures, which 'rather than developing an oppositional politics … emphasise the generation of new possibilities' (North, 2011(North, : 1588. 3 Taken to its extreme this conceptualisation of prefigurative politics ranges from: the explicit and collective assertion of alternatives -including participation in cooperatives, worker-run enterprises, and democratic bodies of various sorts -to innumerable daily acts of quiet resistance to capitalist logic, which can be as mundane as reading a book in the park (Young and Schwartz, 2012: 221; see also Holloway, 2010).…”

Section: Emphasis)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday consumption practices as a site for activism? Exploring the motivations of grassroots reuse groups

Foden¹

2012

PPP

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Abstract AbstractThis paper draws on early findings from a study of grassroots groups and individuals engaged in alternative consumption practices: ways of acquiring, exchanging, using and disposing of goods outside of the formal economy. The study focuses on individuals and groups that take items that would otherwise be classed as waste and try to put them (back) to use. It is especially concerned with ethical and political dimensions of these practices: how small day-to-day acts are associated with trying to live according to a set of values and how they might make a difference to wider problems. Two existing ways of theorising the connection between everyday individual acts and social change are put forward: prefigurative politics and political consumerism. Initial findings suggest ambivalence concerning the political nature of such activities, with participants recognising a politics of consumption, but hesitant to describe their engagement in alternative consumption practices as a political act.

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Capitalism and Its Discontents: Back-to-the-Lander and Freegan Foodways in Rural Oregon

Cited by 40 publications

References 11 publications

Beyond Desperation: Motivations for Dumpster™ Diving for Food in Vancouver

Beyond Desperation: Motivations for Dumpster™ Diving for Food in Vancouver

Becoming Vegetarian: The Eating Patterns and Accounts of Newly Practicing Vegetarians

Everyday consumption practices as a site for activism? Exploring the motivations of grassroots reuse groups

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