Slow Living

by Parkins, Wendy; Craig, Geoffrey

• ISBN13: 9781845201593
• ISBN10: 1845201590
• Edition: Illus.
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-04
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

Speed is the essence of the modern era, but our faster, more frenetic lives often trouble us and leave us wondering how we are meant to live in today's world. Slow Living explores the philosophy and politics of 'slowness' as it investigates the growth of Slow Food into a worldwide, 'eco-gastronomic' movement. Originating in Italy, Slow Food is not only committed to the preservation of traditional cuisines and sustainable agriculture but also the pleasures of the table and a slower approach to life in general. Craig and Parkins argue that slow living is a complex response to processes of globalization. It connects ethics and pleasure, the global and the local, as part of a new emphasis on everyday life in contemporary culture and politics. The 'global everyday' is not a simple tale of speed and geographical dislocation. Instead, we all negotiate different times and spaces that make our quality of life and an 'ethics of living' more pressing concerns. This innovative book shows how slow living is about the challenges of living a more mindful and pleasurable life.

Author Biography

Geoffrey Craig is Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication, School of Media, Communication and Culture, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. Wendy Parkins is Lecturer, School of Media, Communication and Culture, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, and is the editor of Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	ix
Slow Living in the Global Everyday	1	(17)
Slow living	2	(3)
Everyday life	5	(3)
Global culture	8	(4)
Slow arts of the self	12	(6)
Slow Food	18	(20)
Origins, philosophy and structure	19	(3)
Projects	22	(8)
Citta Slow	30	(2)
New social movements and Slow Food	32	(6)
Time and Speed	38	(24)
The temporalities of modernity	39	(7)
An ethics of time	46	(5)
Sloworld	51	(11)
Space and Place	62	(24)
Home and work	64	(5)
Deterritorialization, the local and place	69	(7)
Terroir and tradition	76	(2)
Citta Slow	78	(8)
Food and Pleasure	86	(33)
Pleasure	87	(10)
Authenticity and taste	97	(16)
The shared table	113	(6)
The Politics of Slow Living	119	(22)
Visualizing global social movements	119	(4)
The politics of eco-gastronomy	123	(10)
Life politics	133	(4)
Conclusion: Rage against the (bread) machine?	137	(4)
Appendix: Official Manifesto for the International Movement for the Defense of and the Right to Pleasure	141	(1)
Notes	142	(15)
Bibliography	157	(18)
Index	175