Foreword

Summary

The book you have before you represents a vibrant step forward towards more just, sustainable, diverse, and joyful food systems – in other words, further progress in the development of radical food geographies (RFG).

This exciting collection may elicit a sense of irony as it explores the theory and practice … of action. One might be reminded of comedian- artist Martin Mull's comment, ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture’. But just as his evocatively silly quip cheekily overlooks the richness of writing about music over the centuries, the book before you contains important and enriching multitudes about action for justice. Hammelman, Levkoe, and Reynolds have brought together a variety of voices, geographies, practices, and approaches to compose a hallmark effort of critical reflection. The collected pieces here do not simply move RFG forward as a field, but also advance its aims of engagement and confrontation of power and structures of oppression; action through academic, social movement, and civil society collaborations; and analyses making use of a broadly defined geographic lens. Further, as much as many contributions to this book are, in fact, writing about action, the authors and editors are no mere observers. The practitioners and scholar- activists/activist- scholars behind these pieces are in most cases committed participants and co- conspirators for deep, radical, inclusive, and equitable change. In short: rest assured that they are not merely ‘dancing about architecture’ but are rather walking the walk. Though, with their appreciation of the necessity of joy and creativity in research and change, they also may at times be literally dancing the dance alongside the labourers, farmers, activists, and community leaders who create RFG through their expertise and lived realities of action.

It's also worth noting that this effort calls to mind similar advancements occurring elsewhere in geography, particularly the project of critical physical geography (CPG) (see, for example, Lave et al, 2018). CPG's core intellectual tenets include transdisciplinarity (‘substantive interweaving of physical and social science’), reflexivity, and power and justice (Robertson et al in Lave et al, 2018: 232). Like RFG, CPG is ‘concerned with what the world ought to be’ (Lane et al in Lave et al, 2018: 25) and embraces reflection, self- critique, and the proactive inclusion of multiple ways of knowing.