Local food in perspective : place, time, authenticity, and the relocalization of the food system

While the research on local food systems and movements is well established, the time related aspects of local food promotion, production, and consumption have been barely explored.This dissertation starts to address that topic through three articles: a theoretical analysis of time and agency in food relocalization processes, and two case studies that address ideas of authenticity and heritage, community ties, and place making practices based on the selective framing of shared temporalities at Eastern Market in Detroit.First, I use French Convention Theory to examine how a set of vendors at Eastern Market in Detroit sell their food emphasizing craftsmanship and cultural values more than price or provenance. The work of these vendors manifests a form of compromise between the Domestic and Market worlds that is based on reputation and regard. This shifts the meaning of local food from provenance to a form of authenticity based on the presentation of heritage and community ties.Second, I investigate the ways local actors use the physical arrangements of the space inside and around the Market and how the promotion of local food through new and old references to craftsmanship, care and tradition contribute to the creation of a sense of place. Following Gieryn and Molotch et al., place-making is presented as a recursive process led by ‘strategically placed actors’ (Giddens 1984) whose action creates a conceptual narrative that may create exclusionary spaces. I adopt a visual approach to offer a fresh perspective in terms of understanding the intersection of time and space, history and geography, as well as clarifying how ideas of locality and place are performed.Third, I analyze embeddedness as pertinent to local food systems, from the perspective of time. Drawing from ethnographic research and current literature I highlight the different ways in which time is a relevant variable that makes food embedded in social systems and reduces the alienating effects of the commodification of the food chain. Appeals to tradition, history, ancestry, duration, co-presence and time commitment are different time-related aspects that support the embedding of food production, preparation, and consumption. This approach also allows for identifying agency in wider sets of actions and behaviors than looking at spatial patterns only.The three papers together contribute to increasing the understanding and theorization of place making processes, the relevance of seemingly marginal practices with respect to the determination of agency, and to increasing the focus on the temporal gaze in relation to commodification and de-commodification practices in the areas of local food production and consumption.