Subsistence Agriculture in the US Reconnecting to Work, Nature and Community

Focusing on ethnography and interviews with subsistence food producers, this book explores the resilience, innovation and creativity taking place in subsistence agriculture in America. To date, researchers interested in alternative food networks have often overlooked the somewhat hidden, unorganized population of household food producers. Subsistence Agriculture in the US fills this gap in the existing literature by examining the lived experiences of people taking part in subsistence food production. Over the course of the book, Colby draws on accounts from a broad and diverse network of people who are hunting, fishing, gardening, keeping livestock and gathering and looks in depth at the way in which these practical actions have transformed their relationship to labor and land. She also explores the broader implications of this pro-environmental activity for social change and sustainable futures. With a combination of rigorous academic investigation and engagement with pressing social issues, this book will be of great interest to scholars of sustainable consumption, environmental sociology and social movements.

Introduction: Building shadow structures at the crisis of industrial capitalism Subsistence agriculture in South Chicago Guiding Theories: Social problems, emergent solutions Who are subsistence food producers in Chicago? Meanings across class of alienation and viscerality "It connects me to the Earth:" Marginalized environmentalism and a resistance to capitalist logic "Without the garden we never would have met him:" Practitioner networks as post-capitalist shadow structures Conclusion: "We’ve got to find a solution"

Ashley Colby is interested in the myriad creative ways in which people are innovating in face of the failures of late capitalism and ecological disaster. She is based in Uruguay, where she has recently founded Rizoma Field School for experiential learning in sustainability.