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Escaping to the country: media, nostalgia, and the new food industries
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 19:11 authored by Phillipov, MOver the past decade in the West, television cooking shows have popularized interest in the provenance of food against a backdrop of public concern about the practices of industrial food production. This article explores two series that offer self-sufficiency as a solution to the problem of industrial agriculture. Escape to River Cottage and Gourmet Farmer each centre on a narrative of a city-dweller moving to the country to set up a smallholding. With their nostalgia for an earlier—simultaneously unproblematic and emotionally fulfilling—time of food production, these series imagine a Utopian lifestyle in which audiences are encouraged to choose to produce and consume differently. That it is (middle-class) men who are rediscovering traditional food practices highlights how media discourses surrounding food production can become entangled in gendered representations that give rise to niche food products and experiences designed to ameliorate feelings of risk and uncertainty in contemporary food systems.
Funding
Australian Research Council
History
Publication title
Popular CommunicationVolume
14Pagination
111-122ISSN
1540-5702Department/School
School of Social SciencesPublisher
RoutledgePlace of publication
United StatesRights statement
Copyright 2016 Taylor & FrancisRepository Status
- Restricted