PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The food riot as a form of violent collective protest was a central analytical object in the development of historical-protest research as a branch of social history since the 1970s. After the middle of the 1990s however, a clear decline in interest in the food riot is palpable. Some recent attempts to reinvestigate the topic have pointed to the food market as an underestimated key pattern in food rioting. This is in accordance with recent historical research on market institutions and food-quality policing. In light of these new dimensions, this contribution aims at a reappraisal of historical-protest research in the food-riot tradition. Food rioting, the author argues, should be analysed as only one element in a broader context which could be adequately explored by following the food issues at stake and thus linking different topics, knowledges, publics, actors and institutions. After a discussion of some of these historical dimensions of the food issue in light of new social history, the author turns to the so-called meat war' that took place in Berlin during summer 1912 to illustrate this approach.