We are told so often that we need to own things and do things in order to be successful, or at least to be seen as successful. The ownership of X indicates to the world that we are Y. Business equals success while muddling through life is a painful sign of failure and weakness. Your quality of life is judged externally by your Instagram followers and Facebook ‘friends’ through criteria that have nothing to do with being or survival and everything to do with conspicuous consumption. This is really nothing new. The step up from a subsistence-based life to one build on prestige and specialization is the milestone that defines a sophisticated society. But it has gone so far past specialization; we now have no control and no clear knowledge of how our food is produced and what it is made up of. I am all for buying your bread from the best baker rather than struggling through your own, potentially, tough dough, which is the model of specialization. But we have now passed all control through the curtain into the darkness. Out bursts a bright and shiny white loaf as if it has appeared out of nothing, which is probably an accurate ingredient list.
Subsistence was my favourite word in my undergrad, it implies anything to do with survival, of the individual and the wider society. It is the maintenance of self, without ostentatious surplus but with a consciousness of the impact we create within our environment. It also generally leads to a discussion of food, which is where my love truly lies. Subsistence is not about struggle, or minimalism, it is about flow and consciousness, creating a closed circuit of survival that benefits the individual, the group and the broader environmental context. I am not suggesting that we return to our family groupings, boycott clothing, and race for the most fertile land, but entirely outsourcing our subsistence seems a little much.
Brief history lesson: As social complexity developed the concept of subsistence agriculture continued in settled early agricultural societies. Production was a community project with shared spoils. Nothing was wasted because every member of the group understood the work that went into producing what nourished the group and the need for the nourishment for the society to survive. Once social hierarchy was established to the extent that centralized power was possible, subsistence was put in the hands of the elite classes. The common man would produce the food, deliver it to the central authority, and receive a small ration of it in exchange. This was the very beginning of the occupation specialization that has separated people from their personal subsistence.
Brief history lesson: As social complexity developed the concept of subsistence agriculture continued in settled early agricultural societies. Production was a community project with shared spoils. Nothing was wasted because every member of the group understood the work that went into producing what nourished the group and the need for the nourishment for the society to survive. Once social hierarchy was established to the extent that centralized power was possible, subsistence was put in the hands of the elite classes. The common man would produce the food, deliver it to the central authority, and receive a small ration of it in exchange. This was the very beginning of the occupation specialization that has separated people from their personal subsistence.
Personal subsistence can refer to the acquisition of food (whether through foraging, hunting, or agriculture), the processing, social and cultural consumption, and nutritional satisfaction. This is one of the most significant aspects in an understanding of past life ways and modern human action. Food is about so much more than the physical eating of it. We need to look at our food consumption from all angles and appreciate the cultural and social code embedded in what we eat and how we do it, and consider our diet in terms of the global food network that exists today.
We are offered so many diet plans, foods to avoid and ‘top 10 tricks to lose weight’, but we are not uniform – neither personally nor contextually. ‘You won’t find Inuit’s eating corn’. Julian Steward, the father of cultural ecology, used that image to explain the link between environment and culture and the reality that we are part of the natural ecosystem, not a law unto ourselves. Diet should not be designed around an idealized 10 step plan from a wellness expert living half a world away. While they may have brilliant and knowledgeable advice, the journey through diet is not static, dogmatic or generic. Our diet is something so personal, built by our culture, memories, traditions, idiosyncrasies, personal tastes, social interaction, and position in our world. You won’t find Inuit’s eating corn, or Japanese elders eating chia seeds, or ayurvedic practioners eating seaweed, or Italian mamas eating kumara.
It is important to look at our life ways and the context we are living in now to gain an understanding of the networks we are participating in. The practices of history and prehistory are important yet we need to learn to live where we are and do the best with what we have. Our society is so accustomed to the fast paced, industrialized capitalist system that a reversion to historic subsistence practices, instead of reconnecting us to the social and cultural networks surrounding food, produces a barrier of alienation. Modern subsistence is about moving the philosophies of subsistence into the contemporary environment, allowing space for our bodies, relationships, and actions to take the spotlight, while maintaining participation in the aspects of modern society and culture that serve us best. Although we may not realize it there is a complex network of links, language and implications around food that we are fluent in. When we learn a new language we are painfully away of the complicated anomalies of grammar, something we take for granted in our native language, not really having to think about it. It is not until we study the grammar and literature of our first language that we realize home complex it is, this language that comes so naturally to us. The language of food is the same, we participate without knowing and we perpetuate it without understanding. (Calling cheese in a spray can food is the equivalent of putting YOLO in the Oxford dictionary.) Food is endowed with meaning, emotions, connotations of relationships and bonding. Marketing has built complex cultural traditions around excessive meat and dairy consumption, snacking, and fast foods, none of which serve our health, relationships with each other or our relationship with our environment. We nee to define a social grammar of conscious subsistence, learn a little more about ourselves, and consider the environment that supports us.
Tess Xx
We are offered so many diet plans, foods to avoid and ‘top 10 tricks to lose weight’, but we are not uniform – neither personally nor contextually. ‘You won’t find Inuit’s eating corn’. Julian Steward, the father of cultural ecology, used that image to explain the link between environment and culture and the reality that we are part of the natural ecosystem, not a law unto ourselves. Diet should not be designed around an idealized 10 step plan from a wellness expert living half a world away. While they may have brilliant and knowledgeable advice, the journey through diet is not static, dogmatic or generic. Our diet is something so personal, built by our culture, memories, traditions, idiosyncrasies, personal tastes, social interaction, and position in our world. You won’t find Inuit’s eating corn, or Japanese elders eating chia seeds, or ayurvedic practioners eating seaweed, or Italian mamas eating kumara.
It is important to look at our life ways and the context we are living in now to gain an understanding of the networks we are participating in. The practices of history and prehistory are important yet we need to learn to live where we are and do the best with what we have. Our society is so accustomed to the fast paced, industrialized capitalist system that a reversion to historic subsistence practices, instead of reconnecting us to the social and cultural networks surrounding food, produces a barrier of alienation. Modern subsistence is about moving the philosophies of subsistence into the contemporary environment, allowing space for our bodies, relationships, and actions to take the spotlight, while maintaining participation in the aspects of modern society and culture that serve us best. Although we may not realize it there is a complex network of links, language and implications around food that we are fluent in. When we learn a new language we are painfully away of the complicated anomalies of grammar, something we take for granted in our native language, not really having to think about it. It is not until we study the grammar and literature of our first language that we realize home complex it is, this language that comes so naturally to us. The language of food is the same, we participate without knowing and we perpetuate it without understanding. (Calling cheese in a spray can food is the equivalent of putting YOLO in the Oxford dictionary.) Food is endowed with meaning, emotions, connotations of relationships and bonding. Marketing has built complex cultural traditions around excessive meat and dairy consumption, snacking, and fast foods, none of which serve our health, relationships with each other or our relationship with our environment. We nee to define a social grammar of conscious subsistence, learn a little more about ourselves, and consider the environment that supports us.
Tess Xx