Slow Living [Paperback]

Speed is the essence of the modern era, but our faster, more frenetic lives often trouble us and leave us wondering how we are meant to live in today's world. Slow Living explores the philosophy and politics of 'slowness' as it investigates the growth of Slow Food into a worldwide, 'eco-gastronomic' movement. Originating in Italy, Slow Food is not only committed to the preservation of traditional cuisines and sustainable agriculture but also the pleasures of the table and a slower approach to life in general. Craig and Parkins argue that slow living is a complex response to processes of globalization. It connects ethics and pleasure, the global and the local, as part of a new emphasis on everyday life in contemporary culture and politics. The 'global everyday' is not a simple tale of speed and geographical dislocation. Instead, we all negotiate different times and spaces that make our quality of life and an 'ethics of living' more pressing concerns. This innovative book shows how slow living is about the challenges of living a more mindful and pleasurable life.

Wendy Parkins is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Otago, New Zealand. She is the editor of Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship.
Geoffrey Craig is Senior Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the author of The Media, Politics and Public Life.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Slow Living in the Global Everyday
Slow living
Everyday life
Global culture
Slow arts of the self

2. Slow Food
Origins, philosophy and structure
Projects
Citt Slow
New social movements and Slow Food

3. Time and Speed
The temporalities of modernity
An ethics of time
Sloworld?

4. Space and Place
Home and work
Deterritorialization, the local and place
Terroir and tradition
Citt Slow

5. Food and Pleasure
Pleasure
Authenticity and taste
The shals-