New food regime geographies: Scale, state, labor

Abstract

Food regime analysis is a prominent approach to the role of food and agriculture in global capitalism. Yet recent advancement within the approach has not received as much attention as it deserves outside of specialized circles of agrarian research. Food regime scholarship has over the last few years taken several steps to move away from its previous prevalent emphasis on macro-scale phenomena to make it more applicable to empirical research on agricultural development. This article reviews recent scholarship in food regime analysis to bring out central aspects of such advancement. In particular, this review discusses three key aspects of recent food regime scholarship: First, I find an increased problematizing of spatiality and scale with calls for downscaling the food regime approach. Second, I find a rising centrality of theorizing and analyzing the state. Third, despite these advancements, an important gap remains in sustained attention to questions of labor. I call for further scrutiny of labor in order to bring food regime analysis forwards.