East Side Freedom Library On-Line Launch of “Grocery Activism”

June 1, 2020 by Daniela Leave a comment

Video premiere on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Craig Upright will join East Side Freedom Library’s Peter Rachleff in conversation on Thursday, June 4 at 7:00 p.m. for the launch of his new book, Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota. The event is part of the Ramsey County Historical Society’s History Revealed series and can be accessed from the ESFL Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/EastSideFreedomLibrary/.

Grocery Activism looks back to the 1970s, when the mission of cooperative grocery stores shifted from political activism to the promotion of natural and organic foods. The story of the fraught relationship of these new-wave organizations to the organic food industry, it is an instructive case study in the history of activists intervening in capitalist markets to promote social change.

“Grocery Activism fills a gaping hole in the literature on food activism, and it’s one that my students often ask about: the radical origins of food cooperatives. Readers shocked by Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods may well feel nostalgic for the cramped spaces and dusty bins of the 1970s food cooperatives that are the focus of this book.” —Julie Guthman, author of Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California

“In the 1970s, the organic food movement needed to reach consumers, and food co-ops needed a reason to exist. Grasping the relationship between a social movement and an organizational form is not easy, but Grocery Activism achieves its aims in a clear, informative way. This book will interest anyone who wants to understand how local action can produce new and unexpected forms of market structure.” —Kieran Healy, Duke University

Read more about the book here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-divi…/books/grocery-activism.

THURSDAY AT 7:00 PMGrocery Activism Virtual Launch Event with Craig UprightTune in to watch live

Author: Daniela

I will forever be grateful that I was introduced to the utility and beauty of hand crafted products early in life - from the symbolic motifs sewn into the coarse linen fabric of Croatian traditional wear to the colorful Kilim carpets that decorated the parquet floors in my grandmother's living room. I treasure the memories of my grandfather teaching me how to protect myself against the "evil eye," the smell of the flower stalls in the open air market where my grandmother bought produce early every morning for the day’s meals and the summers spent at my great grandmother's where the village wags would come to gossip over thick, black Turkish coffee in her cool stone kitchen. Someone noted that "For all of us that want to move forward, there are a very few that want to keep the old methods of production, traditions and crafts alive." I am a fellow traveler with those who value the old traditions and folk wisdom. I believe the knowledge they possess can contribute significantly to our efforts to build a more sustainable world - one that values the individual over the corporation, conservation over growth and happiness over wealth.