Skilled vision is more-than-visual because the enskilment of vision happens in intersensorial contexts and because it pertains to the broader formation of aesthetic and ethical sensibilities.... Show moreSkilled vision is more-than-visual because the enskilment of vision happens in intersensorial contexts and because it pertains to the broader formation of aesthetic and ethical sensibilities. Sensory and social apprenticeship coexist in practice. I dwell on the intersensoriality of learning to see in an analytical way and on the sociality and morality of skilled visions, using ethnographic examples from my fieldwork with food gardeners in the Netherlands and from other scholars who use a skilled-visions approach, notably Judith Willkomm on skilled listening in bioacoustic field research in Germany, Tom Martin on craft learning as perceptual transformation in maritime carpentry in the United States, and Jonathan Hankins on the apprenticeship of traditional upholstery in the United Kingdom. Each example shows how the realignment of visual perception in one's learning environment (with other senses, with technical apparatuses, and with human and nonhuman others) mediate the acquisition of perspicuity, namely the perceptual and aesthetic realization of each detail in their proper function and as appropriate to their context. Show less
The article investigates urban gardening in Turin with ethnography, historical analysis and photography, using both the authors’ photography and sources from social media and private archives. The... Show moreThe article investigates urban gardening in Turin with ethnography, historical analysis and photography, using both the authors’ photography and sources from social media and private archives. The authors collaborate to analyse ‘community’ gardening through a critical anthropological perspective which centres on the hegemonic power of aesthetic assumptions about the urban green. As a post-industrial, multicultural city, Turin illuminates the dialectic of gentrification vis-à-vis socioeconomic and cultural diversity, which is a crucial dynamic of many urban renewal trends towards ‘green cities’. We highlight the homogeneity of an aesthetic regime vis-à-vis the diversity of ‘skilled visions’ of social actors and its restraining effects on participatory governance. We contribute to ongoing debates in urban anthropology and visual studies, concerned with urban regeneration agendas in the de-industrializing cities of the Global North. Show less
Building on unpublished ethnography conducted in Massachusetts, 2011–2014, this chapter compares and contrasts context-specific notions and practices of ‘solidarity’ among collaborative networks... Show moreBuilding on unpublished ethnography conducted in Massachusetts, 2011–2014, this chapter compares and contrasts context-specific notions and practices of ‘solidarity’ among collaborative networks that are active in organizing alternative forms of food procurement. The terms of comparison is Grasseni’s (Beyond alternative food networks: Italy’s solidarity purchase groups. London: Bloomsbury, 2013) ethnography of Italian Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale, or Solidarity Purchase Groups in northern Italy. Recent ethnographic examples from Italy – concerning especially cooperatives – are contrasted with the US solidarity economy network in the context of the Boston local food movement and Massachusetts community-supported agriculture. The chapter unravels and juxtapose different conceptions, discourse and relevant practices of solidarity in collaborative networks that self-define as ‘solidarity economy networks’ or as ‘solidarity and green economy’ alliances, in order to show how context-bound the meaning of solidarity in collective food procurement is. By showing how ‘solidarity’ translates into different local solutions and social movements, the chapter highlights the sociocultural dimensions of these local experiments in food system transformations. Show less
The FoodCitizens? project compares cases of collective food procurement in three countries of the European Union (Poland, Italy and the Netherlands), specifically in three post-industrial cities of... Show moreThe FoodCitizens? project compares cases of collective food procurement in three countries of the European Union (Poland, Italy and the Netherlands), specifically in three post-industrial cities of comparable size and population, namely Gdansk, Turin and Rotterdam. The project explores how networks of social actors organize themselves at comparable levels of intervention (foraging, namely gathering or producing food themselves; short food chains, namely engaging directly with producers; governance, namely rethinking markets, allotments and modes of procuring food that are relevant to urban procurement). The methodology of the project is to "compare by context" how these three levels materialize in the three cities: which social actors are actually engaged, through which concrete actions, and how politics and governance affect what is otherwise largely depicted as a mere issue of economics and/or sustainability (how to produce and procure food sustainably at affordable prices). This way, so-called (post)socialist food-ways assume a particular significance as not necessarily "the odd one out" in EU regions and economies, but rather as one of the possible identifiable cultural and economic pathways that collectivities take as they are informed by specific histories, territories, local economies, and social or demographic challenges. This article focuses on very different urban forms of food rescue and reallocation in Gdansk, namely through the grassroots activities Food not Bombs and through the Food Bank. Based on participant observation of relevant case studies in gentrifying Gdansk, the article focuses on the re-invention of "food waste", of food gifting, and food rescue. Show less
Direct food provisioning indicates any way of procuring food that does not conform to the ‘norm’ of individuals shopping in supermarkets, whereby consumers are placed at the receiving end of a long... Show moreDirect food provisioning indicates any way of procuring food that does not conform to the ‘norm’ of individuals shopping in supermarkets, whereby consumers are placed at the receiving end of a long, complex, global food chain. This norm is not at all ‘normal’, since it is neither long-established nor sustainable. There are many ways of practising direct food provisioning, including traditional subsistence farming all over the world. Consequently, this chapter challenges the idea that direct food provisioning should be considered per se ‘alternative’ or ‘radical’. Procuring food is a multifaceted social phenomenon that has accompanied the history of the human species and the differentiation of its cultures. In particular, collective food procurement allows reflection on the consequences of globalized food systems vis-à-vis direct food provisioning. Show less
The authors compare the solidarity practices of farmers and food activists in Croatia and Italy in order to highlight the unintended consequences of mutual support initiatives and how these may... Show moreThe authors compare the solidarity practices of farmers and food activists in Croatia and Italy in order to highlight the unintended consequences of mutual support initiatives and how these may reinforce disengagement from governance. Two ethnographic case studies from Istria (Croatia) and Lombardy (northern Italy) show self‐reliant ways of organizing mutual support networks among, respectively, Istrian winemakers and Lombard Solidarity Purchase Groups. They both challenge the top‐down regulatory governance of food systems, with the former organizing forms of economic and logistic mutual support to bypass strictures and faults of the Croatian fiscal and agricultural aid system and the latter self‐certifying organic crops to avoid the costs and arbitrariness of bureaucratic procedures for organic certification. Both highlight the discourse and practice of morality in food procurement and the ambivalence of the concept and practice of ‘solidarity’. Show less
