Landscapes – Foods – Foodscapes

Foodscapes can be understood as a synthesizing overview of the production, transport, processing and consumption of food as well as the handling of food waste from a spatial perspective. The synthesizing approach becomes clear from the second part of the word '-scapes'. This makes foodscapes research compatible with the theories, concepts and methods of landscape research. At the same time, it draws on the research tradition of food geography. This intersection results in a multi-perspective approach that ranges from phenomenological experience to system-theoretical abstractions and the evaluation of spatial frequency distributions. In recent years, studies have diversified both thematically and theoretically: Classical-positivist approaches have increasingly been supplemented by constructivist approaches. Our anthology "Landscapes Foods Foodscapes. Relationships between space and food from an interdisciplinary perspective" aims to illustrate the diversity of current research on the topic of foodscapes. This concerns not only the diversity of theoretical approaches or methodological approaches, but also different levels of scale, from regional to global. It also concerns different approaches to the topic, whether empirical or conceptual, as well as aspects of production, transportation, processing, consumption and the handling of food waste. There is a wide range of specialist approaches, from geography, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, spatial planning, economics, philosophy, political science, but also technical science and law.