To be an ecological society we have to stop the whole habit of living despite nature. We must take our pleasure and inspiration in seasonality and ecological particularity.
Jan 182019
localism
Jul 262014
My favourite reading is food blogs and my favourite Berlin food blog is Stil in Berlin. The author gets around, and reviewed the food in the community garden, Prinzessinnengarten. I thought it was clever to serve some food in a garden so went for a visit, but found a lot more than I anticipated. The main difference between this garden and every other garden I’ve seen is that it’s full of people. The first reaction I […read the rest]
Jul 172014
The Neustadt neighborhood of Dresden, which was rebuilt by artists after the reunification of Germany, has quite a few artisan manufacturers, including shoes and clothes designers with the sewing machines right in the shop. I was intrigued by Susanne Möller’s Leather workshop at Alaunstrasse 70 (open Monday to Friday from 1400-1800) Phone 0173 56 11 912. The main products on display were colorful leather children’s shoes. She also made a very dramatic folded handbag and […read the rest]
Jun 152014
“Composting and growing carrots is a nice start, but we need to get rid of the growth economy, make the global economic system work to meet needs, and replace capitalism with a different economic system that works for people. Most Green people are stuck at the level of compost heaps, which don’t have a chance of saving us. We don’t want to be a society full of compost heaps heading for disaster. Growing carrots locally is just the first step to changing the economy.”
Apr 172014
This is my second project for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, with whom I’m just thrilled to be working. The piece is co-authored with Nick Rose, as a follow-up and expansion to a piece he wrote to introduce to Australians a policy instrument, the Local Food Act, which has been implemented recently in Ontario Canada. The original article was in The Conversation. Because of its popularity and attraction of a lively debate, we decided to provide more […read the rest]
Mar 162014
“People see eggs and they ask ‘are these barn raised or free range raised?’ ‘Are they organic or not?’ It baffles me that wine is not the same. Where did it come from? How was it grown? Is it organic? People should be interested in the process and provenance of wine, the same way they are with food.”
May 262013
I was invited to speak at Design your Day Job, organized by &Company, part of Vivid Ideas 2013. 25 May 2013 Sydney Australia I’m new to Australia, and since I arrived, I’ve really hoped to become part of something like this event, so I’m absolutely thrilled to be here with you today. Although I imagined we’d all be around a long table and I’d be cooking for you. But this is cool too. My talk today […read the rest]
Jan 142013
Exploring Melbourne, we chanced upon a parking lot transformed. The People’s Market in Collingwood opened this December at 64 – 68 Stanley Street as a Thursday-Sunday destination with food, coffee, alcohol, art galleries, pop-up retail, and live music (even a “band in residence”). Many other public spaces could fit this description, but there was something special about this one, and we sat there looking at it and feeling it and trying to figure out what made it […read the rest]
Apr 222008
4.22.08 Amory Starr Boston College Sociology Seminar Alternative Consumption Projects’ Use of Social Movement Strategies The paper I distributed is about local food as a social movement. That paper provides a model that I am wanting to apply to a different, more cutting edge arena, which is what I call “local stuff”. Both in the case of food and in the case of stuff, it seems necessary to consider the possibility that consumption can […read the rest]