Connections and responsibilities, visible and invisible geographies

Drawing on current research from the AHRC-ESRC’s Cultures of Consumption programme, this paper explores the connections (and disconnections) between people and places within the UK, across Europe and in the wider world. Its specific focus is on the politics of food, following a series of recent ‘food scares ’ that have led to a crisis of consumer trust in the British food industry and to intense public debate about food safety and the management of risk. The paper takes as its focus the imaginative and material geographies associated with a single product – sugar – which, despite its historical associations with slavery and current concerns about childhood obesity, remains a surprisingly ‘invisible’ commodity in its everyday form as a contemporary food additive. While some NGOs and campaigning groups have sought to politicise the unequal and highly distorted world market for sugar, the recent reform of the EU sugar regime failed to generate widespread public interest. Debates about fair trade and ethical consumption have tended to focus on other commodities (such as tea, coffee and chocolate) and most British consumers are unaware of the intense political debate surrounding th