Polite Transgression: Pleasure as Economic Device and Ethical Stance in SlowFood

An increasingly legitimate way of portraying food issues in the public arena is via the framing of controversial dichotomies, such as local vs global, organic vs conventional, unprocessed vs processed, sustainable vs unsustainable, socially fair vs unfair. Many cultural entrepreneurs take part in the selection and interpretation processes which surround such dichotomies. Among them Slow Food (hereafter SF) has increasingly established itself as an influential actor on the scene of alternative food networks advocacy. In this chapter, we offer a reconstruction of the historical and cultural genealogy of SF, with relevant details about its social and political background as well as organizational set-up. This sets the context for a discussion of SF current politics, which we approach by looking, firstly at the place that SF occupies within the broader field of critical consumption, secondly at SF hybrid nature and complex architecture as a cultural intermediary and, thirdly, at its rendering of pleasure as a universal “right”. Overall, we aim to address both the link between cultural values and economic interests as expressed by SF initiatives and its visions of food quality , and SF particular take on the tension between elitism and universalism in its contribution to what has been defined as the “turn to quality” in the food sector. The chapter relies on empirical research conducted in Italy on SF Italian core. Through ethnographic observations, document analysis and interviews with key informants we offer a thick description of SF self-understanding and self-presentation. In its turn, this illuminates an increasingly relevant way of framing pleasure within the boundaries of critical consumption, providing a good example of the politics of quality food circuits in contemporary markets.