From slow food festival to fine dining table: politicized foodscape, gastronomy, and social sustainability in eastern Taiwan

ABSTRACTThis article examines how and why Taitung's slow foodscape, a process and outcome of simultaneously bottom-up and top-down governance, has provided opportunities for residents to reinvent foodways. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Taitung's indigenous community and food network, this article shows a farmer's case study to examine the emergence of the gastronomic network of fine dining chefs, gastronomic and local food intermediates, and farmers. Considering factors of ethnic/local identities, alternative food politics, and marketing/branding of smallholders' products, I analyze how the slow foodscape celebrates and interacts with indigenous foodways, which become hybridized and are included in Taiwan's glocalized culinary art, agri-food branding, and gastronomic tourism. I argue that the residents' reinvention highlights their multiple identities and practices; it also empowers Taitung, widely regarded as "a less developed and socially unsustainable county," to embrace cultural diversity, livability, and hence more feasible social sustainability, to respond to the mainstream development discourse and practice of Taiwan and global capitalism.KEYWORDS: Slow foodscapeindigenous foodwaysgastronomygovernancetourism AcknowledgmentsThis article is dedicated to Taiwan's gastronomic network inspiring my research and enriching my food experiences. I also thank Headman S and his family for their teaching, collaboration, and support. The Humanity Innovation and Social Practices Center of National Taitung University and my students as team members make the research feasible and interesting.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This article uses pseudonyms for villages, people, and restaurants to protect my interlocutors' privacy.2. I will address my social engagement and reflect on my university social responsibility project management in another paper.3. I will write on my consultation experiences and reflections on slow food tourism in another paper.Additional informationFundingThis work was part of the research project entitled "Djalan (road) and Tjekeza (Bridge): The Collaborative Construction of Regional Subjectivity and Social Innovation along the South Link Line in Taitung" supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, under grant number MOST 110-2420-H-143-001. The project obtained approval from the National Cheng Kung University Governance Framework for Human Research Ethics (approval number: NCKU HREC-E-108-376-2).