Urban food cultures. Towards an integrated approach of the urban food system

ABSTRACT

This introduction to the thematic issue Urban Food Cultures: Towards an Integrative Approach to the Urban Food System is an invitation to further widen the perspective of urban food culture research. The understanding of urban food cultures should start from an integrated exploration of food practices in every part of the urban food system: from food production and processing to retail and consumption and to disposal, potential circular reuse, recycling to upcycling of food and its ingredients. Investigating the different aspects of the urban food system helps nuance the too self-evident town-country and local-global dichotomies often dominant in previous research. Interdisciplinary and integrated approaches to urban food systems may help bridge both knowledge gaps and offer relevant insights for many of the future challenges urban food systems face.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban food cultures
• urban food systems
• integrated approaches

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Annette Hansen for her useful comments on the text and language corrections to this introduction; all remaining errors are our own. The authors would also like to thank Prof. Dr. em. Patricia Lysaght for language corrections to the contributions within this special issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).