Troubling Places: topography and the poverty spatial politics of ‘alternative’ food

(Dr) Ben Coles

Department of Geography

University of Leicester

bfc2@le.ac.uk

17th July 2014

Introduction:

• Empirical Encounters (1 & 2)1. ‘Lunch’ and ‘alternative’ images of Borough Market

2. ‘topography’

• General Argument• In/Visibilities

• Fetishism in the Market

• Beyond the Fetish of the Commodity

• Towards a ‘Fetish’ of Place

• Facades of Borough Market

• Towards ‘Better’ Places

Borough Market and ‘Alternative’ Foods

Challenging ‘Alternative’ Food

Through this encounter, I want to raise four questions about alternative/alternative food:

1. What are its spaces/places and spatial politics?1. And how can we perturb them?

2. Does ‘alternative’ necessitate a provincialisation?

3. What are the intersections between the ‘alternative’ and the ‘conventional’?

4. Does ‘alternative’ necessarily equate to good?

…Challenging the Places of ‘Good’ Food

…5. What is good, and how do we get at it?

London’s Borough MarketFacades, Images, ‘Fetishes’

Borough Market:Infrastructure, materialities, ‘de-fetishes’

Borough Market:Transgressions, Disruptions, ‘Agitations’

Beyond the Commodity Fetish and towards a ‘Fetish’ of Place

‘Disrupting the fetishism of commodities’ requires ‘a project aimed not just at confronting unethical market behaviour, but the social relations that underlie them’

(Fridell 2007)

Conclusions

‘Conspicuous’ alternative food

Justice for whom?

Justice through place and place-making