Slow Food is a grassroots organisation that embraces a slow way of life, linking the love of food with community and environmental support. Based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork inside Slow Food’s international headquarters in Italy, anthropologist Valeria Siniscalchi reveals what really goes on behind the scenes of this enigmatic organization. Observing daily meetings, decision-making processes, and major events, she explores the contradictions, complexities, and ambiguities of the movement – as well as the passionate commitment of its employees, members, and leaders.
Through talking to insiders and people who have ‘broken’ with Slow Food, Valeria Siniscalchi makes an independent, full-length study of one of the most high profile and controversial food movements in the world – and of activist organizations more broadly.