Research

 

You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.

Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
 

Books: Research

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Food, Taste and Trends in Britain since the 1950s
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How have eating habits changed in recent decades? What does it mean to eat well?

This fascinating book examines continuity and change in food consumption and eating patterns since the 1950s. The culinary landscape of Britain is explored through discussion of commodification, globalisation and diversification enabling an understanding of both developing trends and enduring habits.

The author’s research undertaken over 40 years offers fresh insights into such practices as everyday meals, shopping, cooking and dining out and how these are shaped by demographic, social and cultural processes. The book provides a comprehensive and engaging analysis of eating in Britain today and of the many controversies about how this has changed.

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Following the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been a significant interest amongst scholars and activists in alternative forms of organization which operate according to a non-capitalist logic, including the Alternative Consumer Cooperatives (ACCs).

Using the example of Turkey, where neoliberal economics combined with authoritarian politics formed conditions that have profound social and economic consequences, this book investigates ACCs as spaces for prefigurative food politics.

Offering a novel perspective on alternative forms of organizing, this book challenges the easy assumptions of what it means to be a scholar working on activism in the Global North and shows how, through the foundational values of solidarity, reciprocity and responsibility, it is possible to create new and imaginative forms of politics and activism.

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The Digital-Molecular Convergence
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A wave of innovation driven by the convergence of digital and molecular technologies is transforming food production and ways of eating in the US, Western Europe and Australasia. This book explores a range of contemporary agri-food issues, such as the digitalisation of farm production, aka Precision Agriculture, farmer independence, gene editing, alternative proteins and the rise of app-based home food deliveries.

This is the first book to provide a systemic analysis of technological innovation and its socio-economic consequences in modern food systems, including the ‘hollowing out’ of rural communities and pronounced industrial concentration. The food system is under growing public pressure to respond to global climate change, but this book finds little evidence of transition to sustainable low-carbon trajectories.

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A Hidden Deprivation
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Michael Drew’s review of the causes and effects of food poverty in Ireland offers the first full-length study of this significant and protracted issue that has been exacerbated by COVID-19.

The book brings together the complex picture emerging from interviews with users of food aid. Their pathways into and through food poverty are impacted by the policies and practices of government and employers with wide-ranging implications. The work explores the international landscape of food poverty and situates both experiences and responses in a comparative context. It considers how these results contribute to an understanding of the problem and what action should be taken.

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As the demand for food banks and other emergency food charities continues to rise across the continent, this is the first systematic Europe-wide study of the roots and consequences of this urgent phenomenon.

Leading researchers provide case studies from the UK, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain, each considering the history and driving political and social forces behind the rise of food charity, and the influence of changing welfare states. They build into a rich comparative study that delivers valuable evidence for anyone with an academic or professional interest in related issues including social policy, exclusion, poverty and justice.

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The rise of food charity

Drawing on empirical research with the UK’s two largest charitable food organisations, this book explores the prolific rise of food charity over the last 15 years and its implications for overcoming food insecurity.

As the welfare state withdraws, leaving food banks to protect the most vulnerable, the author questions the sustainability of this system and asks where responsibility lies - in practice and in theory - for ensuring everyone can realise their human right to food.

The book argues that effective, policy-driven solutions require a clear rights-based framework, which enables a range of actors including the state, charities and the food industry to work together towards, and be held accountable for, the progressive realisation of the right to food for all in the UK.

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