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National politics has a significant impact on organizing and accessing community welfare. This book engages with notions of everyday politics within two London-based food co-ops emerging from different political environments and ideologies. It provides a careful and engaging examination of the experiences of political and economic change in Austerity Britain, revealing how national politics came to punctuate everyday lives within the co-ops. It highlights the political resonances that practices of care, aid and community organizing came to have within the food co-ops at a time of rapid welfare withdrawal, as well as the tensions between more radical and neoliberal imaginaries that played out within them.
“This is a terrific book …written in a great, clear style, its narrative keeps the reader interested and it never really tires.” • Theodoros Rakopoulos, University of Oslo
“I enjoyed reading this book immensely. It is particularly strong in ethnographic content; I find it a compelling read.” • Peter Luetchford, University of Sussex
Celia Plender is a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Exeter. She is also the co-convenor of the Association of Social Anthropologists’ Anthropology of Britain Network. One of her recent research projects was The Politics of Food and Housing in Changing Times, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Origins
Chapter 2. Food Cooperative Imaginaries
Chapter 3. Structure and Structure Lessness
Chapter 4. Changing Times, Changing Politics
Chapter 5. Changing Places, Changing Communities
Chapter 6. The Politics of Aid, Exchange and Price
Conclusion: The Everyday Politics of Food Co-ops