Detroit has long been noted for the difficulties its residents face with basic food provisioning, but after an extended absence, national chain grocery stores are now returning to the city. Whole Foods Market is the first major national corporate grocer to reopen in the city following a period of disinvestment by the sector as a whole going back to the mid-2000s. As the city moves through a series of dramatic political and economic upheavals defined by fiscal crisis, emergency manager control, and the largest municipal Chapter 9 bankruptcy in U.S. history, food has become a focal point for debates over economic and racial inequalities, and contrasting ideals of urban governance in the city. In this research brief, we describe an ethnographic project that examines how concepts of food justice and ethical food relate to urban governance in Detroit. We seek to explore how Whole Foods Market and Detroiters engaged in shopping and activism articulate “just,” “good,” and “quality” food in ways that imply varying visions of governance for the city, community, and self. We suggest that Detroit's moral economy of food could offer a particularly fruitful venue for understanding divergent visions of the city's future and the relationship between food and politics.
An Edible Moral Economy in the Motor City: Food Politics and Urban Governance in Detroit
Yuson Jung is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Her research focuses on issues of consumption, food, wine, globalization, postsocialism, and European integration. Most recently, she has co-edited Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World (with Jakob A. Klein and Melissa L. Caldwell, University of California Press, 2014). Her work has also appeared in Anthropological Quarterly; Anthropological Journal of European Cultures; Food, Culture and Society; and as chapters in several edited volumes that explore everyday food practices, wine and culture, and alternative food movements.
andrew newman is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He received his PhD in 2011 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Anthropology. His research focuses on social movements and environmental politics in cities. His forthcoming book is entitled Landscaping Discontent: Political Ecology as Urban Design in Immigrant Paris (University of Minnesota Press). He is also working on a collaborative mapping and oral history project with Detroit residents entitled “Detroit: A People’s Atlas.”
Yuson Jung is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Her research focuses on issues of consumption, food, wine, globalization, postsocialism, and European integration. Most recently, she has co-edited Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World (with Jakob A. Klein and Melissa L. Caldwell, University of California Press, 2014). Her work has also appeared in Anthropological Quarterly; Anthropological Journal of European Cultures; Food, Culture and Society; and as chapters in several edited volumes that explore everyday food practices, wine and culture, and alternative food movements.
andrew newman is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He received his PhD in 2011 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Anthropology. His research focuses on social movements and environmental politics in cities. His forthcoming book is entitled Landscaping Discontent: Political Ecology as Urban Design in Immigrant Paris (University of Minnesota Press). He is also working on a collaborative mapping and oral history project with Detroit residents entitled “Detroit: A People’s Atlas.”
Yuson Jung, Andrew Newman; An Edible Moral Economy in the Motor City: Food Politics and Urban Governance in Detroit. Gastronomica 1 February 2014; 14 (1): 23–32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2014.14.1.23
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