Lecture 17Outline of Last Lecture I. Commodity ChainsII. Life and Debt FilmOutline of Current Lecture III. Commodity Chains cont.IV. CyberworldsCurrent LectureLecture: Commodity Chains- Cultural geographers are interested in the ways commodity chains link people’s lives- Spatial justice: The study of how the world’s resources are distributed geographically - When considering the production of food and food commodity chains, cultural geography asks us to consider how the social, the environmental, and the economic all work together. - Sustainable consumption (and production): Production and consumption practices that take into account not only the ecological impacts of what we buy but also the equity, human rights and political dimensions of them. Guthman: Agrarian Dreams, the Paradox of Organic Farming in America- Think of contradictions embedded in organic agriculture and problems with it. - Elite identity- San Francisco Bay Area: o Historically a liberal-to-radical, counter-cultural, political climate (tends to be left if not anti-establishment)o A high wage economy-one of the wealthiest parts of the U.S. and also very white. - How is it that foods start trending and start being sold in all markets?- Alice Waters: o Started restaurant Chez Panisseo Small café in 1971 o “Organic” mesclun aka yuppie greens, spring mix, and mixed baby greens - 2 UC Santa Cruz grads start up Earthbound Farms Company- Organic farming vs. industrialized organic agriculture:o As organic produce production has gotten bigger in scale and more industrialized, many of the original principles of organic agriculture have been compromised. GEOG 3 1st Edition- A one-pound box of prewashed lettuce contains 80 calories of food energy. But to grow, chill, wash, package and transport, this tiny amount takes more than 4600 calories of fossil fuel energy to produceMichael Pollan- Article on Wal-mart selling organic foods. This is actually not a good thing because if they do sell organic food, they will push down the prices! o Affects health system, labor wageso Setting up a system that cant sustain itself- What does it mean to price food responsibly?- Naked Juice owned by Pepsi, Odwalla owned by Coca-Cola meaning we don’t always know what we’re buying. - We in part define who we are (our identities) through the foods we eat. Valentine: - Thinking about food has much to reveal about how we understand our personal and collective identities. Seemingly simple acts of eating are flavored with complicated and sometimes contradictory cultural meanings.- We perform our class, ethnic, and gender identities through our food.o How many ethnic slurs involve foods? o Clip of Pulp Fiction on McDonalds burger- We define who we are based on our food choices. - Taste has come to play a role in defining social ranking and identity- Eating organic salad mix is performative of an elite sensibility, a rather unusual one o Performative: an utterance or action that creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered/enacted under appropriate or conventional circumstances. Ex. priest-his words mean something and create a situation Ex. Man going to Vegas and betting Ex. Saying “I promise”o An action that makes something “real” by citing previous actions Cyberworlds: - What kind of space is cyberspace? - Transnational relationships: commodity chains, Diasporas, etc. - If spaces are social processes, what kinds of “spaces” are cyberspaces? o The boundary between the virtual and actual is constituted and reinforced by movements between them. - This does not make where you are relevant, but geographical location makes new relevancy- Peacemaking is absolutely foundational to worldBoellstorf: - MMO’s: massively multiplayer online gameso A role playing game where people interact in a virtual world- MUD’s multiuser dimensions/multiuser dungeon- Multiuser online virtual worlds that were entirely text based- Afk: literally away from keyboardo When player leaves their computer without logging off and their avatar remainso Like lag, afk reveals how virtual worlds are places in their own right1. People experiences in cyberspace are shaped by their experiences in actual worlds/afk.2. Peoples experiences in cyberspace are shaped by the politics of location 3. Cyberworlds enable the creation of communitiesa. Third spaces (according to Oldenberg)b. Spaces for informal social interaction and relationships outside of “home and work”c. Akin to the role of pubs, coffeehouses, etcd. This “mediascape” is a different kind of “imagined community” than a nation-state ***Jules Salitin-different view of