Food Literacy and Adult Education: Learning to Read the World by Eating
Keywords:
food literacy, global corporate food system, adult education, Paulo Freire, Jurgen HabermasAbstract
While literacy is central to the field of adult education, food literacy is just emerging as a crucial concept. Backed by the recognition that we all eat, food literacy is gaining traction in an era of rising crises associated with food, from increasing world hunger to the so-called obesity epidemic. But current understandings of food literacy are inadequate for dealing with the crises we must learn our way out of – most definitions are apolitical, blame the victim and do not consider the larger context, thus constraining the ‘politics of the possible’. And yet, as a knowledge-based concept, food literacy has the potential to play a powerful role in adult learning and social change. By calling on Habermas’ three knowledge domains and keeping in mind Freire’s insight that all education is political, a new understanding of food literacy emerges that is capable of analyzing current foodscapes and modelling sustainable alternatives.
References
Albritton, R. (2009). Let them eat junk: How capitalism creates hunger and obesity. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R. & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books Inc.
Block, L. G., Grier, S. A., Childers, T. L., Davis, B., Ebert, J. E. J., Kumanyika S., Laczniak R. N., Machin, J. E., Motley, C.M., Peracchio, L., Pettigrew, S., Scott, M. & van Ginkel Bieshaar, M. N. G. (2011). From nutrients to nurturance: A conceptual introduction to food well-being. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 30 (1), 5-13.
Finger, M. (2005). Critical Theory. In L. M. English (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Adult Education (165-168). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Food Literacy Project. (2011). Food literacy. Retrieved October 14, 2011 from www.food-literacy.org/en/welcome.
Freire, P. (1976). Literacy and the possible dream. Prospects, VI (I), 68-71.
Guthman, J. (2008). Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in California. Geoforum, 39, 1171-1183.
Habermas, J. (1978). Knowledge and human interests. (Jeremy J. Shapiro, trans.), Boston: Beacon Press.
Kimura, A. H. (2011). Food education as food literacy: Privatized and gendered food knowledge in contemporary Japan. Agriculture and Human Values, 28, 465-482.
Lawrence, F. (2011). Alarm as corporate food giants target emerging countries. The Guardian Weekly, December 2, 8-9.
Liu, W. L. (2010). Chinese immigrants and lifelong learning for food safety and diversity. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec.
Liu, W. L. (2008). Informal learning through food-related activities among Chinese immigrants in Canada. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
McMichael, P. (2000). The power of food. Agriculture and Human Values, 17, 21-33.
Morrow, R. A. & Torres, C. A. (1995). Social theory and education: A critique of theories of social and cultural reproduction. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Nesbit, T. (2006). Introduction. In T. J. Fenwick, T. Nesbit & B. Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives (13-22). Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc.
Pollan, M. (2008). In Defense of food: An eater’s manifesto. New York: The Penguin Press.
Quigley, B. A. (2005). Literacy. In L. M. English (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Adult Education (381-387). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stoneman, S. (2010). Julie Guthman, On globalization, neoliberalism, obesity, local food and education. Politics and Culture, 2009 (2). Retrieved November 5, 2012 from http://www.politicsandculture.org/2010/10/27/an-interview-with-julie-guthman.
Sumner, J. (forthcoming 2013). Adult Education and Food: Eating as Praxis. In Tom Nesbit, Susan Brigham, Tara Gibb and Nancy Taber (eds.), Contexts of Adult Education: Canadian Perspectives, Thompson Educational Publishing Inc.
Sumner, J. (2008). Eating as a pedagogical act: Food as a catalyst for adult education for sustainability. Kursiv - Journal fuer politische Bildung, 4, 23-37
Taylor, M. & Blunt, A. (2006). Towards a Canadian research culture in adult literacy learning. In T. J. Fenwick, T. Nesbit & B.Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of Adult Education: Canadian Perspectives (326-335). Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc.
Trivedi, B. (2012). Eat your way to dementia: Is the Western diet poisoning our brains. New Scientist, 215 (2880), 32-37.
Waterman, L. (2008). It’s not easy eating green. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wiser Earth. (2007). Food literacy. Retrieved October 14, 2011 from www.wiserearth.org/aof/191
Yamashita, L. (2008). Learning to eat appreciatively and thoughtfully (EAT): Connecting with food through school gardens. Unpublished Honors Thesis, Oberlin College, Ohio.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication will be required to assign copyright to the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education/L’Association canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation des adultes (CJSAE). CJSAE requests that, as the creator(s)/author(s) of the manuscript your are submitting assign certain rights to the manuscript to the CJSAE in exchange for undertaking to publish the article in print and electronic form and, in general, to pursue its dissemination throughout the world. The rights the CJSAE requests are:
- The right to publish the article in print and electronic form or in any other form it may choose that is in keeping with its role as a scholarly journal with the goal of disseminating the work as widely as possible;
- The right to be the sole publisher of the article for a period of 12 months;
- The right to make the article available to the public within a period of not more than 24 months, as determined by relevant journal staff of the CJSAE;
- The right to grant republication rights to itself or others in print, electronic, or any other form, with any revenues accrued to be shared equally between the author(s) and the journal;
- The right to administer permission to use portions of the article as requested by others, seeking recompense when the CJSAE sees it as warrented;
- The right to seek or take advantage of opportunities to have the article included in a database aimed at increasing awareness of it;
- As the author(s), the CJSAE wishes you to retain the right to republish the article, with acknowledgement of the CJSAE as the original publisher, in whole or in part, in any other pbulication of your own, including any anthology that you might edit with up to three others;
- As the author(s), the CJSAE withes you to retain the right to place the article on your personal Web page or that of your university or institution. The CJSAE askes that you include this notice: A fully edited, peer-reviewed version of this article was first published by the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, <Year>, <Volume>, <Issue>, <Page Numbers>.
BY AGREEING TO THE FOREGOING, YOU CONFIRM THAT THE MANUSCRIPT YOU ARE SUBMITTING HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE IN WHOLE OR IN PART, AND THAT NO AGREEMENT TO PUBLISH IS OUTSTANDING.
SHOULD THE ARTICLE CONTAIN MATERIAL WHICH REQUIRES WRITTEN PERMISSION FOR INCLUSION, YOU AGREE THAT IT IS YOUR OBLIGATION IN LAW TO IDENTIFY SUCH MATERIAL TO THE EDITOR OF THE CJSAE AND TO OBTAIN SUCH PERMISSION. THE CJSAE WILL NOT PAY ANY PERMISSION FEES. SHOULD THE CJSAE BE OF THE OPINION THAT SUCH PERMISSION IS NECESSARY, IT WILL REQUIRE YOU TO PURSUE SHUCH PERMISSSION PRIOR TO PUBLICATION.
AS AUTHOR(S), YOU WARRANT THAT THE ARTICLE BEING SUBMITTED IS ORIGINAL TO YOU.
Provided the foregoing terms are satisfactory, and that you are in agreement with them, please indicate your acceptance by checking the appropriate box and proceed with your submission.
This copyright agreement was extracted with permission from the "Best practices guide to scholarly journal publishing" (2007), produced by the Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ).
