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Organizing Hunger: the Global Organization of Famines and Feasts

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Globalization and the South

Part of the book series: International Political Economy Series ((IPES))

Abstract

There appears to be a perplexing paradox when global food production reaches record levels and yet tens of millions of people either starve or suffer from chronic malnutrition or malnourishment.1 Numerous commentators, and certainly popular understandings, hold that the paradox obtains either because population growth in fact outstrips food production; or, that hunger — a catch-all term encompassing acute starvation to malnourishment — is the consequence of so- called natural disasters, or at least extraordinary and exceptional happenings.2 In both cases, there is a barely-spoken assumption that pre-social or ‘inescapably natural’ forces continue to retain a hold over the ordering of human society.

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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Saurin, J. (1997). Organizing Hunger: the Global Organization of Famines and Feasts. In: Thomas, C., Wilkin, P. (eds) Globalization and the South. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25633-4_7

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