Bodily geographies of 'Slow' Food: Food activism and visceral politics

This dissertation develops concepts and methods of "visceral geography" through the study of the food based social movement, Slow Food (SF). The term visceral refers to how bodies feel internally -- i.e. sensations, moods, states of being -- in interrelation with environments/space.;The first paper focuses on methods, specifically the author's empirical trials with accessing the visceral realm. Research with SF involved verbal and non verbal communications, all following a "partnership" approach to research. The paper explores successes and difficulties associated with investigating the "visceral" realm. It is argued that paying attention to the visceral realm in research not only helps scholars to study how bodily experiences inform social actions but also challenges researchers and research participants to reflect upon, question, and perhaps transform how their own bodies feel the world.;The second paper then examines the role of the visceral realm in the development of social movements. It seeks to show how movements can evolve through and generate certain visceral dispositions, and by doing so enable various modes of activism. The paper examines visceral aspects of activist identity within SF in Halifax, Canada, and Berkeley, USA. The paper details what constitutes visceral experiences of SF and expresses the power of the visceral in the development of the movement.;The third paper examines issues of social boundaries within social movements, arguing for attention to bodily sensation. The paper demonstrates the possibility of a biosocial approach to boundaries and social difference that takes the visceral realm into account. It argues that as people interact with social aspects of SF, their biological bodies actively respond with unpredictable physiological shifts. These physiological shifts inform how food tastes and more broadly how food-spaces feel. The authors suggest that attentiveness to bodily sensation would enhance the ability of all movements to mobilize a diverse base.;Together, the three papers build towards clear conceptual and methodological understandings of visceral geography.