Ronald Ranta

• Senior Lecturer at Kingston University

Background Dietary intakes in UK children fail to meet national recommendations, especially in low‐income groups. Involving children in food preparation and cooking may enhance acceptability of a wider range of foods, enhance their skills and increase their enjoyment of food. An innovative recipe meal kit scheme, Building Resilience in Today's Envi...

Increasing food insecurity (FI) in the UK has led to increased food bank usage ⁽¹⁾ . This underrepresents true levels of need, since many with FI utilise alternative coping strategies ⁽²⁾ . Food banks are designed to provide emergency food for a limited time, requiring referral with proof of need. They have been critiqued for this and their limited...

Community cafés are non-profit ventures tackling food insecurity (FI) locally and equitably, primarily using pay-as-you-feel models ⁽¹⁾ . FI is most prevalent in low-income and other vulnerable groups ⁽²⁾ , in whom poor diets and worse health also intersect ⁽³⁾ . Despite recognition that FI is largely driven by poverty and inequity ⁽⁴⁾ , FI individ...

The recent ONS survey reported that 92% of students had been affected by the cost-of-living crisis with 46% revealing their overall mental health and well-being had worsened ⁽¹⁾ . London Metropolitan University has a unique diverse student population: in 2020-21, 82% of students were mature, 64% of students identified as female, 55% of students wer...

The voluntary and charitable sector is responsible for much food support in the UK, in the absence of direct government action. A rise in food insecurity (FI) places additional importance on the work of unpaid volunteers, instrumental in food support schemes. Their perceptions, views and experiences are essential contributors to maintaining and enh...

Levels of food insecurity (FI) and the need for food support have increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. These crises also enabled substantial innovation in food support provision, including a move away from more traditional food bank models toward social supermarkets (SSM). These are characterized as not-...

Background The Covid‐19 pandemic has increased the need for food support but simultaneously enabled substantial innovation in food support provision, including the evolution of social supermarkets (SSM). These allow consumers to choose from a range of low‐cost products, minimise stigma and reduce food waste. Data from members of two Sussex SSM were...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how food aid providers in Sussex and Southwest London responded and managed during the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The methodological approach consists of three inter-related layers. A qualitative description research approach based on naturalistic inquiry, supplemented by site visits and p...

Together with “Chapter Five: National Food in the International Context I—Gastrodiplomacy” and “Chapter Six: National Food in the International Context II—Gastronationalism and Populism” the current chapter investigates the duality of national food: on the one hand, it can be used to indicate the attractiveness of the nation and increase its appeal...

This chapter highlights what the ‘food and nationalism’ angle can bring into the study of ‘top-down’ nationalism. It investigate how food and diet are used as powerful tools by the state and state-sponsored organisations in pursuit of nationalist programmes, focusing on Japan in a comparative context. The analysis is further developed through an ex...

The conclusion pulls together the different themes discussed in the preceding chapters and shows how these issues, which manifest at different levels, are inter-related. Because food is such an essential item, it permeates every level and aspect of human life and therefore can serve as an entry point to various issues. This in turn suggests that fo...

This chapter focuses on the way in which international organisations as the global norm/standard setter influence nationalism in reference to food. In relation to food, international organisations appear to be more likely to be used by the nation-state and other groups in order to reinforce national identities and claims rather than being able to s...

This chapter investigates the ways in which the nation is created, given meaning and maintained by everyday/banal acts of cooking, talking about and consuming food. The chapter pursues its aim by exploring the parameters of everyday nationalism, in particular talking, writing and choosing the nation, and through the case study of Japanese-style pas...

This chapter continues to apply banal and everyday nationalism frameworks to our exploration of the relationship between food and nationalism/national identity, but the focus shifts to groups. It is a truism that the nation is comprised of not only individuals but also a vast number of groups, which mediate the members’ experience of the nation. Ho...

Building on “Chapter Four: Food and Diet in ‘Official’ Nationalism” and “Chapter Five: National Food in the International Context I—Gastrodiplomacy”, this chapter examines the assertion of national rights over food (gastronationalism). The chapter starts by investigating the complexities of gastronationalism in an increasingly interconnected and in...

This chapter looks at the construction and reproduction of ‘nation-ness’ through food by profit-seeking entities which are ostensibly independent of the nation-state’s ideological work. It focuses on the food industry, broadly defined, and seeks to understand how commercial entities contribute to the creation, contestation and maintenance of nation...

Food is essential to life and therefore it is fundamentally political in many ways. However, despite the fact that we live in a world based on nation-states with enduring power and appeal of nationalism, and the fact that food is considered in many cases to be ‘national’, the relationship between food and nationalism/national identity has not been...

This chapter investigates normative concerns related to food in reference to nationalism making the most of the highly symbolic nature of food. It focuses on the question of who decides what is appropriate to grow, produce and eat in the international arena. The chapter opens with an examination of the case of whale meat eating to review how the qu...

Israel/Palestine is a site of a bitter struggle over definitions of indigeneity and settlerness. The contested definition of ‘local food’ and the challenge of decolonising gastronomy are the major themes in the heated debate about food politics and culinary appropriation. In this chapter, Ronald Ranta and Daniel Monterescu provide an ethnographic a...

This article aims to provide empirical evidence against the theory and practice of immigrant integration through the experience of EU citizens in the UK around Brexit. We demonstrate that, in the case of EU citizens, the outcomes of presumably successful “integration” have been achieved while – and, we argue, because of the fact that – EU citizens...

If you have any idea for a monograph or an edited volume that investigates food and identity in our globalising world contact the series editors a.ichijo@kingston.ac.uk and ronald.ranta@kingtson.ac.uk or Sharla Plant sharla.plant@palgrave.com, Publisher, Palgrave Macmillan for more details. ABOUT THE SERIES From 'food security' and 'food wars' to '...

Focusing on food (in)security, this paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on what has been so far neglected in the ongoing Brexit discussions. The current pandemic has produced startling images of empty supermarket shelves, shortages of farm workers, increased use of food banks and heightened concern over the health of those at the...

Globalization transforms societies, economies and cultures. As a subject, food allows us to draw unique narratives on these transformations . The history of pie and mash, also known as the ‘Londoner’s meal’, is such a story of globalization.

This article focusses on the future of food in the UK in the context of Brexit. It examines the claims and promises made by Brexiteers before the referendum and juxtaposes these with the approach pursued by the Conservative-led government since. The article argues that there is a clear dissonance between the two. This dissonance is the result of tw...

This article focusses on the future of food in the UK in the context of Brexit. It examines the claims and promises made by Brexiteers before the referendum and juxtaposes these with the approach pursued by the Conservative‐led government since. The article argues that there is a clear dissonance between the two. This dissonance is the result of tw...

Based on interviews and surveys of Bulgarians living in the UK, the article explores the changing nature of Bulgarian foodways in the UK. Using banitsa, a 'traditional' Bulgarian breakfast dish, as the starting point for the research, the article examines the relationship Bulgarians in the UK have with their host and home communities as well as wit...

What do deep fried mars bars, cod, and Bulgarian yogurt have in common? Each have become symbolic foods with specific connotations, located to a very specific place and country. This book explores the role of food in society as a means of interrogating the concept of the nation-state and its sub-units, and reveals how the nation-state in its variou...

What do deep fried mars bars, cod, and Bulgarian yoghurt have in common? Each have become symbolic foods with specific connotations, located to a very specific place and country. This book explores the role of food in society as a means of interrogating the concept of the nation-state and its sub-units, and reveals how the nation-state in its vario...

What do deep fried mars bars, cod, and Bulgarian yoghurt have in common? Each have become symbolic foods with specific connotations, located to a very specific place and country. This book explores the role of food in society as a means of interrogating the concept of the nation-state and its sub-units, and reveals how the nation-state in its vario...

This article explores the dynamics of belonging of European Union (EU) nationals living in the United Kingdom (UK) in the context of UK's withdrawal from the EU. It uses a mixed‐methods study of prereferendum and postreferendum survey and interviews and focus groups to investigate patterns of belonging among EU nationals, shifts in the parameters o...

Exploring a much neglected area, the relationship between food and nationalism, this book examines a number of case studies at various levels of political analysis to show how useful the food and nationalism axis can be in the study of politics.

Chapter 1 has investigated the relationship between individuals and the nation through food using the frameworks of banal and everyday nationalism. These frameworks have enabled us to address Anthony Cohen’s concern that the largely structuralist and often uncritical assumption that individuals ‘by default’ derive their identity from their membersh...

The previous chapter has examined the important role food plays at the nation-state level and the ways in which the state uses food in its attempts to control, modernise and homogenise the nation. It also showcased the close relationship between the state’s domestic political, social and economic policies and its intervention in the nation’s diet....

The current volume has set out with two major aims: to investigate the relationship between food and nationalism, which has been largely neglected in the study of nationalism, and to demonstrate that the ‘food-and-nationalism’ axis provides a useful angle to study politics at various levels. We have argued in our Introduction that it is high time t...

This chapter sets out to primarily examine the reasons and the ways in which food is articulated, constructed and reproduced as national by the private sector. Despite the advance of globalisation and the spread of multinational food corporations, in recent years there has been an increase in the articulation and promotion of food as national in th...

The previous chapter finished with a question: when there is contestation of values over cuisine, food culture and diet, who would or should be the arbiter? When there is an international dispute, the first candidates for such a position are usually international organisations. At the one end of the scale, there is a range of international conventi...

The chapter investigates the ways in which the nation is created, given meaning and maintained by everyday/banal acts of cooking, talking about and consuming food. The chapter pursues its aim by exploring the parameters of everyday nationalism, in particular talking and choosing the nation, and through the case study of Japanese-style pasta. In thi...

Whether it is ideationally poor or not, there is a scholarly consensus that nationalism can be understood as a form of ideology, not just as a form of ‘national sentiment’ (Freeden, 1998; Malesevic, 2013). It is an ideology because it is not just about what is but also about ‘what ought to be/should be’ (Özkirimli, 2005: 63). After all, in Ernest G...

As the current volume demonstrates, the issue of food and nationalism/national identity is more often than not approached from banal or everyday nationalism angles. To repeat some of our arguments in the volume, this is because the quotidian nature of food and eating lends itself well to the investigation of nationalism in the private sphere, the k...

This paper examines the role Arab-Palestinian food plays in the construction of Israeli national identity and food culture. In particular, it sets out to understand the recent willingness in Jewish-Israeli society to acknowledge Arab, and to a lesser extent Arab-Palestinian, culture and food. This new phenomenon has resulted in the re-Arabization o...

This book provides a detailed historical and political analysis of Israel's policy decision-making process towards the Occupied Territories, under successive Labour governments. The book argues that Israel did not have a strategic policy towards the Occupied Territories and instead engaged in non-decision making.

This book examines Israel's relationship and political decision-making process towards the Occupied Territories from the aftermath of the Six Day War to the Labour Party's electoral defeat in 1977. The period represents the first decade of Israel's occupation of the Occupied Territories and the last decade in which the Labour Party was Israel's mos...

This book proposed to deal with the complex reality that dawned on the Middle East in the aftermath of the Six Day: Israel’s occupation of territories three and a half times its own size, and their people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Palestinians. The book raised the question of whether successive Israeli governments, under the leadershi...

Between September 1972 and April 1973 the Labour Party held a lengthy debate — known as the Grand Debate — on the future of the Occupied Territories (OT). The debate, the brainchild of party chairman Aharon Yadlin, was held in response to ‘mounting pressures’1 to reconcile the differences among party members prior to the elections (October 1973); i...

The collapse of the Meir government left the Labour Party in a difficult situation. Its popularity had diminished as a consequence of the war and the reputation of its veteran leadership was tarnished. In order to fill the leadership vacuum, and fearing new elections and a renewed succession battle, the party needed to find a compromise candidate b...

The lack of any meaningful American and international pressure, as well as the complexity of maintaining the national unity government and preserving the unity of the Labour Party, inhibited any meaningful debate on the long-term future of the Occupied Territories (OT). This policy-making vacuum provided Allon with an opportunity to influence Israe...

On 23 June, Hakibbutz Hameuhad (the United Kibbutz) convened to discuss the post-war situation. Originally a non-political grassroots organisation, it considered itself a vehicle for the realisation of Zionism; it had contributed to the creation of numerous kibbutzim in the state’s pre- and post-independence era. The organisation also served as an...

In his memoirs, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan criticised the conduct of the government and the army in the period leading up to and during the war. He accused Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of mismanaging the country and of being over-reliant on the US. Dayan claimed that the government under Eshkol did not complement the army’s operational plans with c...

The Rabin government’s lack of strategic planning with regard to the Occupied Territories (OT) did not inhibit it from trying to pursue a second interim agreement with Egypt, which was supported by most ministers.1 However, despite broad ministerial support, and before being asked to do so by Kissinger, the government was unable to take a firm deci...

Towards the end of 1968 rumours of Eshkol’s deteriorating health circulated in the Israeli media. As a consequence of his ill health, Eshkol was mostly absent from cabinet meetings and the government mostly operated on the basis of internal inertia; Labour Party leaders and ministers waited patiently for his death.1 Behind the scenes an intense suc...

This article sets out to study the role that Palestine and the Arab-Palestinians have had on Israeli national identity through the examination of Israeli food culture. Food culture played an important part not only in the emancipation of European Zionist-Jews who immigrated to Palestine before 1948 but also in the creation of the Israeli national i...

This thesis aims to provide a detailed historical narrative of Israel’s relationship with the Occupied Territories between the years 1967 and 1977, using the most up-to-date archival material. The central argument of the thesis is that successive Israeli governments lacked a coherent and comprehensive long-term policy towards the Occupied Territori...