Contemporary and traditional localism: a conceptualisation of rural local food

The increasingly popular local food movement in the US has experienced wide-scale buy-in on behalf of the general public as well as in academic arenas. However, there have been recent efforts to critique this movement, typically for being inequitable and unfairly geared towards those with above-average financial means. In this article, I examine local food efforts and present a new conceptualisation of food localism. While geographically localised food consumption activities are taking place, some have ideological labels attached to them, whereas others do not. What I have termed contemporary and traditional localisms exist in the same physical but different social space. The contemporary local is represented by current local food initiatives and corresponding aspirations to support local farmers and to promote sustainability through local purchasing behaviour. The traditional local, on the other hand, is similar in that it represents food growing activities that are in close geographical proximity to con...