Wine tourism is a growing phenomenon, with tourists enjoying not only wine but a rural lifestyle that is associated with winegrowing areas and the elusive essence of terroir. The Temecula Valley in southern California, a small wine-producing region and wine tourism destination, is experiencing state-led plans for a vast expansion of production and tourism capacity. This article traces the challenges inherent in this development process, and questions the sustainability of such plans regarding the very environment the wine tourists seek out, especially regarding the availability of natural resources, mainly water, needed to fulfil these plans. The article concludes with a call for an applied anthropology of policy that is centred on the articulations of the state and neoliberal capitalism.
Wine Tourism in the Temecula Valley
Neoliberal Development Policies and Their Contradictions
Kevin A. Yelvington, Jason L. Simms, and Elizabeth Murray
Kerry Whiteside
In December 1996, the European Union gave its authorization to sell transgenic corn for consumption and cultivation in Europe. Some EU memberstates, notably Austria and Italy, refused to allow any imports of genetically modified organisms (“GMOs” or “OGM” in French). Resistance of that sort was unexpected from France. In Europe, France was originally the country most interested in advancing research and applications in the area of agricultural biotechnology. Before GMOs became a matter of public controversy, France led Europe in deliberate release trials.
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2003
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 73–90
On the Taste of the Regions
Culinary Praxis, European Politics and Spatial Culture – A Research Outline
Bernhard Tschofen
Regional culinary 'specialities' are usually considered as indicative of the culture of specific areas, of their traditions and ways of life. Only recently has research begun to focus on the processes that constitute regional food cultures. This article traces the use of 'culinary heritage' as a concept in regional practices and European politics, developing an analysis of how everyday food practices are transformed first into cultural heritage, and then into cultural property. It then presents a comparative ethnographic project aiming at a cultural analysis of procedures involved in the EU food quality assurance system. In conclusion, the article proposes perspectives that may help fill the gaps in research identified in this context.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2008
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 24–53
A French place without a cheese
Problems with heritage and identity in northeastern France
Paola Filippucci
In France, the classic produit du terroir, the local product that with its mix of skill and raw materials embodies the distinctive tie between people and their terroir (soil), is cheese. Thus, when inhabitants of the Argonne say that it “does not even have a cheese”, they imply that it lacks a patrimoine (cultural heritage). On the other hand, they do make passionate claims about 'being Argonnais', conveying a marked recognition of, and attachment to, a named place in relation to which they identify themselves and others. Focusing on this paradox, this article will highlight certain assumptions regarding the definition of cultural heritage found in public policy.
Patrick McEvoy
awareness is important is also evident in her inclusion of discussions of terroir and her notion of a post-Pasteurian paradigm of microbiological cooperation. Tsing’s discussion is also informed by the embodied ecological awareness of her subjects, but it
The Color of French Wine
Southern Wine Producers Respond to Competition from the Algerian Wine Industry in the Early Third Republic
Elizabeth Heath
argued, were set on “destroying French wine, the old terroirs of the mother-country, our quality wines, in order to put in their place an inferior wine of artificial fermentation … from Africa, a Muslim country where wine is forbidden and [produced
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 89–110
Green Fields and Blue Roads
The Melancholy of the Girl Walker in Irish Women’s Fiction
Maureen O’Connor
, ‘Terror in the Terroir: Resisting the Rebranding of the Countryside’, The Quietus , 13 December 2013, http://thequietus.com/articles/14114-country-life-british-politics-uncanny-music-art . 14 Ariel Salleh, in conversation with Meira Hanson, ‘On
Aaron Freundschuh, Jonah D. Levy, Patricia Lorcin, Alexis Spire, Steven Zdatny, Caroline Ford, Minayo Nasiali, George Ross, William Poulin-Deltour, and Kathryn Kleppinger
vines—discourage alcoholism, and promote the French brand. This virtuous partnership adopted what Bohling calls “a rationalizing discourse,” which drew on ideas about authenticity and terroir ; that is, the notion that the land itself had a sort of
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2020
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 129–162