There’s more to world hunger than lack of food. More pressing problems include inequality, conflict, and corruption that limit access to affordable food. The authors describe the basicas of a sociological approach to hunger and more effective food policies.
about the authors
Stephen J. Scanlan is in the department of sociology and anthropology at Ohio University. He studies comparative social change with an emphasis on food insecurity and development.
J. Craig Jenkins is in the sociology department at Ohio State University. He is the author of Identity Conflict: Can Violence Be Regulated?
Feature
The Scarcity Fallacy
Comments
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BLOG ROUND-UP « New Politics Review
[...] Stephen J. Scanlan, J. Craig Jenkins, and Lindsey Peterson: The scarcity fallacy [...]
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zcato
I find it amazing that the politics of food and food producers is so strong that these realizations haven’t made their way into the minds of public policy makers. There are many cases in the developed communities of the world, especially in the US, where we see that a given “solution” is not working, but the profits are too good, or personal morals are too important for someone to let the situation change. The “war on drugs” is a great example of this. We have had severe prohibition for a number of years, and it hasn’t worked, but in Portugal they decriminalized possession and they’ve radically changed the way that people seek treatment.
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Food production increases, world hunger…also increases » Graphic Sociology
[...] A good deal of thinking and research in sociology, building off the ideas of Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, suggests that world hunger has less to do with the shortage of food than with a shortage of affordable or accessible food.” –Stephen Scanlan, J. Craig Jenkins, and Lindsey Peterson, Contexts Vol. 9:1; Winter 2010, p. 3… [...]
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Scarsity does not Exist
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About Contexts
Contexts is a quarterly magazine that makes sociology interesting and relevant to anyone interested in how society operates.
It is a publication of the American Sociological Association, edited by Jodi O’Brien (Seattle University) and Arlene Stein (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey).
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