INTEGRATING UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA INTO FOOD STUDIES. SOME KEY ELEMENTS FOR A FUTURE NARRATIVE ANALYSIS
INTEGRATING UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA INTO FOOD STUDIES. SOME KEY ELEMENTS FOR A FUTURE NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: Over time, imaginative narratives have allowed people to either escape real life (through fantasy or daydreaming) or make predictions about the future of reality, providing inspiration for the progress of mankind. An important starting point for studying the link between food and future is the typology proposed by Belasco: the “classic future” (which imagines a utopian future, inspired by the “cornucopia”), the “modern future” (which promotes processed foods stored in easy-to-store containers, based on the concept of “scientific feeding”, which aimed to maximize food production and waste reduction, by strengthening and simplifying the means of production), and the “future of recombination” (which emphasized the combination of elements of the past with certain elements of the present, in order to obtain a product that will be used in the future, assuming that food is prepared on the basis of 'a process of consolidation and segmentation of foods, which means that agriculture will also be transformed, by putting in place “experimental cropping systems” and “controlled agriculture”). The aim of this article is to present the possible alternative ways to draw a "map" of the stories about the future of food as they result from utopian writings, science fiction and fantasy novels.

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