Food letters
Reconfiguring people, foods, and species across boundaries
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216970 |
|---|---|
| Authors | I‐Liang Wahn (0000-0002-9472-5891, Tunghai University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-20 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-28 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Food Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1552-8014 • E-ISSN: 1751-7443 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/15528014.2026.2737477 |
| OpenAlex | W7214725262 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 26 |
Food Letters is a magazine that includes food samples and combines narratives with photographs, illustrations, and tastes to tell stories about producers, food, and rural places. Originating in Japan after the Tōhoku earthquake, the idea of food letters “traveled” to Taiwan in 2017 and inspired several similar magazines. This paper explores how food letters advance understandings of agriculture in the Anthropocene and of the rural as a space of hope. Focusing on Yunlin Food Letters in Taiwan and an issue of Tohoku Food Letters in Japan, the study conducts narrative analyses using the concept of teleo-affective configuration to examine how affects toward food, family, and rural place reconfigure relationships among people, food, plants, and animals. The paper argues that food letters emphasize love and care for family and food in ways that reconfigure multispecies partnerships and imagine mutually supportive communities involving urban consumers. Drawing on the concepts of the rural as performed and spaces of hope, the paper further discusses how food letters cross boundaries between rural and urban, human and non-human, and Japan and Taiwan, reflecting both the challenges and hopes of rural revitalization efforts in East Asia.
food magazines · food producers · multispecies relationships · rural revitalization · urban-rural boundary · Rural Development and Agriculture · Rural development and sustainability · Urban and spatial planning
Climate Emergency
Affect and emotions as drivers of climate change perception and action
The roles of consumption in East Asia’s transformations
Planetary rural geographies
Transecting “healthy” and “sustainable” food in the Asia Pacific
Cosmopolitan locavorism
Consumption and teleoaffective formations
Characterizing alternative food networks in China
Civic food networks and agrifood forums
The moralities of consumption and interactions among consumer cooperatives in East Asia
Performing rurality and urbanity
Hybridising counterurbanisation
The Anthropocene
Food geographies 'in', 'of' and 'for' the Anthropocene
Planetary food regimes
For food space
(Bio)politics of existence and social change
Agri-Food Systems and the Anthropocene
Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene
Including animals in sociology
Patchy Anthropocene
Anthropologists Are Talking - About the Anthropocene
| Highly cited | No |
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