The Global Politics of Food: Introduction to the Theoretical Perspectives Cluster

The corporate-dominated, fossil-fuel dependent model of agricultural production has produced chronic undernourishment, an epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases, and unprecedented ecological devastation. In May 2010, the Universidad Interamericana in Mexico City hosted an international conference on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination. Sponsored by Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory, Inc. and by Seattle University School of Law, the conference took place under the auspices of the South-North Exchange on Theory, Culture and Law (SNX), a yearly gathering of scholars in the Americas that seeks to foster transnational, cross-disciplinary and inter-cultural dialogue on current issues in law, theory and culture.Published in the University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, the conference papers examine the complex ways in which the global food system reinforces hierarchies of power and privilege.This Introduction situates the essays collected in the theoretical pespectives cluster within the parameters of LatCrit and outsider jurisprudence, and explains how these essays contribute to our understanding of the role of food policy in perpetuating the subordination of marginalized populations on a global scale. The Introduction also discusses the growing food sovereignty and food justice movements, and the importance of integrating the insights of these movements into the broader critique of neoliberal globalization.