Call for Papers
Food, Culture and the Environment: Communicating About What We Eat
Call for manuscripts for special issue of
Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture
Volume #4, Issue #2 (2010)
Co-Editors: Andy Opel, Florida State University; Joseé Johnston, University
of Toronto;
Richard Wilk, Indiana University
Every day, humans literally eat the world. Our most intimate, daily contact
with the natural world comes in the form of the food we eat and the liquids
we drink. The environmental, political, and social implications of our food
choices ripple across the planet, shaping ecosystems, our bodies and the
actual genetic structure of plants and animals. In recent years, discourses
have emerged that renew our attention to food as a site of cultural struggle
where language, power and politics influence what we eat and how we eat it.
Labels such as ?natural,? ?organic,? ?free-range,? and ?cruelty-free? direct
our attention back to the food production process, reconnecting us to the
environmental and industrial systems that produce and distribute our food.
>From the ?slow food? movement to concepts such as the locavore, food miles,
low-carbon diet, edible schoolyard and community supported agriculture, food
is attaining new levels of public awareness in-part through new discursive
formations. Global grassroots activists and authors such as Michael Pollan,
Marion Nestle, Carlo Petrini, Wendell Berry and Vandana Shiva have been
unpacking the political and cultural dimensions of our food choices, serving
up a buffet of issues and debates in need of scholarly attention.
We invite researchers worldwide who are working in the topic area of food
and culture to submit manuscripts that analyze the meanings of food in the
discourses of the media, commercial culture, social movements, and public
policy. How is language used to reveal and/or elide food production
processes? What are the popular images of food, how are they produced and
what do they tell us about our farms, our diets and our politics? How is
food being used to advance environmental agendas? What do food labels tell
us about the food we eat? What are the social justice components of our food
and how are these connected to environmental justice? How are grassroots
movements responding to corporate food production and distribution? These
are examples of the questions that may be addressed in this special issue of
Environmental Communication.
We seek manuscripts that analyze language, media representations, historical
contexts, material and economic conditions, institutional settings,
political initiatives, practices of resistance, and/or the theoretical
significance of discursive formations surrounding food. All methodologies
are appreciated and welcomed. Essays will be selected to be academically
sound, intellectually innovative, and conceptually relevant to communication
about food.
Manuscripts should be formatted in Microsoft Word in a PC-compatible version
(Mac users, please utilize the most current versions of Word and end your
file names in ?.doc?) and submitted electronically as attachments. E-mail
messages to which manuscripts are attached should contain all authors? name
and affiliations. They should indicate a corresponding author, and include
name, affiliation, e-mail address, postal address, and voice and fax
telephone numbers for that person. Manuscripts should include an abstract of
150 words or less, including a list of five suggested key words. Manuscripts
should be prepared in 12-point font, should be double-spaced throughout, and
should not exceed 8,000 words including references. The journal adheres to
APA Style. Manuscripts must not be under review elsewhere or have appeared
in any other published form. Upon notification of acceptance, authors must
assign copyright to Taylor and Francis and provide copyright clearance for
any copyrighted material. For further details on manuscript submission,
please refer to the ?Instructions for authors? on the journal?s website.
The journal is published in English, and manuscripts must be submitted in
English. Please see the journal website
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17524032.asp) for manuscript
guidelines. Manuscripts should be emailed to (aopel /at/ fsu.edu) by August 31,
2009.
Please disseminate this CFP to any colleagues that might be interested.
Andy Opel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Media Production Area Head
Department of Communication
Florida State University
PO Box 3062664
University Center Bldg C
Tallahassee, FL 32306-2664
(W): 850-644-8768
(C): 850-322-3349
www.andyopel.net
