Craft Breweries, Neolocalism, and the Geography Classroom

Neolocalism profoundly shapes post-twentieth and early twenty-first century North American cultural landscapes. Neolocalism is a deliberate cultivation of regional and local identities, borne out of a perceived need to “forge better geographical identities” in a globalized world (Shortridge 1996, 10). Neolocalism shapes economics, local and regional identity, sense of place, and social patterns and processes. Its expressions in landscape, food, advertisement, and other socioeconomic practices are deliberate mechanisms for organizing space. Through neolocal processes, the local specificities of places emerge as a response to the homogenizing effects of globalization (Zelinsky 2011; Schnell 2013). Since the late 1990s, North American cultural geographers explore neolocalism through its connection to, and expression within, craft brewing industries (Flack 1997). Inspired by Schnell and Reese (2003) and others (e.g., Flack 1997; Mathews and Patton 2016; Fletchall 2016), the following lesson plan uses craft brewery products to introduce neolocalism to university-level Human Geography students. After surveying geographical literature on the intersections of neolocalism and craft brewing, the lesson plan describes a procedure for use in university Human Geography classrooms. Throughout, it ensures optimal learning outcomes by adapting insights from established best practices in geography pedagogy (e.g., Rose 1996; Park 2003; Revell and Wainwright 2009). Participating students learn the concept of neolocalism, identify ways craft brewers construct neolocal identity, and learn and practice the basics of qualitative content analysis. Qualitative content analysis methods include a range of techniques used to analyze diverse forms of cultural texts. The qualitative content analysis introduced here is derived from work by cultural geographers engaging in visual and textual analyses (e.g., Wyckoff and Dilsaver 1997; Schnell and Reese 2003; Briwa and Wyckoff 2020; Briwa and Bergmann 2020; Bergmann and Briwa 2021). This form of content analysis identifies major themes expressed by cultural texts and recognizes how researchers’ subjective experiences shape processes of identification. It also offers space for reflection on the complex meanings associated with place identity. The lesson contributes to ongoing discussions about the geographies of food and ways in which they can be introduced into geography classrooms (Bosco 2020; Lane, Pedrick, and Mueller 2020; Harner 2020; Greenleaf and Robinson 2020). The place-specificity of food and drink is undeniable. For example, combined soil, climatic, and topographic conditions shape the character of grapes (and subsequently wine) produced at a given place, giving rise to the terroir concept, or the “taste of place.” Neolocalism is an important extension of the terroir concept, explicitly highlighting how human factors—history, social practices, and economic activities—play a role in the production and consumption of food and drink (Schnell 2013; SjölanderLindqvist, Skoglund, and Laven 2020; Bosco 2020; Ikäheimo 2021). Therefore, this lesson plan is a useful addition to the Human Geography classroom.