Film-maker, academic, author of Stuffed & Starved, co-author of A History of the World In Seven Cheap Things, and Inflamed
Here’s an appreciation of Carlo Petrini and his politics from my newsletter. If you’re not signed up, join in here! Carlo Petrini died on the evening of 21 May, at home in Bra, the small Piedmontese town at the heart of Slow Food. He was 76, and he was the reason I joined Slow Food’s advisory board. (Since … Continue reading "Joy’s Great Democrat"
UPDATE: Please sign this petition to support Sergio Oceransky Beneath Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula there is a waterworld. The cenotes — a Spanish word derived from the Mayan dzonot, meaning abyss — form a network of underground caves and rivers that run for thousands of miles through limestone, connecting the forest to the sea. They are the region’s only … Continue reading "Dzonot & Toh"
This widget shows the chokepoints and seasonal vulnerability of different countries to import shocks. Slide across the months to see how imports change across the seasons. Each bubble represents a major fertilizer-importing country/region. Bubble size is proportional to import value (2024 USD). Colour intensity tracks import dependency ratio — so Brazil at 85% and West … Continue reading "A…
I’ll dig into this a bit more next week in the newsletter, but here’s a report to which I contributed, just out from IPES-Food, on what counts as agricultural innovation, and what the future of it could look like.
Many years ago, back when blogging was new and I was a graduate student, I ran an effort called Class Worrier. I thought I might dust it off now that I’ve reached a pause in my book-writing, because I think I’ve fallen back in love with writing and want to do more of it. I’m … Continue reading "The Three Things That Change the World"
This short essay, first published by the Transition Security Project, offers a short introduction to the idea of ‘Polycrisis’, which I’m using to think through some ideas around systems change. If you’d like a more in-depth look, part 1 of a very long essay is here. The Terrain of Polycrisis “Intersectional” is a clumsy word … Continue reading "Polycrisis: A Breviary"
[A version of this was published by Progressive International here] “If food sovereignty means having local control over food systems, how can we do that if we’re all in debt?” The question hung over the hills above Kandy in September 2025, as 700 delegates from six continents gathered for the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum on … Continue reading "Systems Change Now or Never – A note from the Third…
Speaking at Curries Fountain this weekend, twenty years after Abahlali baseMjondolo emerged from the shack settlements of Durban, I was reminded of what genuine popular democracy looks like when it refuses co-option. It has been twenty years since a meeting brought together leaders from fourteen shack settlements at Kennedy Road in Durban, and they decided … Continue reading "Everybody Thinks,…
Original at the Boston Review More than a century before Zohran Mamdani declared he wanted a New York City network of grocery stores “focused on keeping prices low,” socialists in Spain were furious about a network of grocery stores that kept prices low. An archipelago of tienda-asilos (shelter or asylum shops) had opened across the country in … Continue reading "The Opposite of MAHA"
Decades ago, Richard Pithouse and I were reading Alain Badiou’s Being and Event, and discussing his ideas with our comrades in Abahlali baseMjondolo. If you’re picking up a trace of Badiou’s set-theory-as-ethics in this quote by the organisation’s General Secretary – “Every human being, everywhere, must be counted as a human being” – then this … Continue reading "Badiou’s Spinoza in the Field"