Local food research: a bibliometric review using Citespace II (1970–2020)

Abstract

PurposeIn recent years, one of the most important and active research areas has been local food. This study aims to examine the evolution and trends of local food research in several disciplines or fields in the 50 years, highlighting emerging research themes, collaborations such as authors, institutions, journals and co-citations such as documents, authors and journals.Design/methodology/approachA total of 869 local food-related articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database from 1970 to 2020 were analyzed by several bibliometric analyses using CiteSpace II software.FindingsThe findings indicate that the number of studies in the local food field has increased rapidly and it is an interdisciplinary subject. Moreover, the results indicate that there is partly collaboration among authors, institutions or countries that conduct research on local food. For example, the most productive authors in this field are in USA, India, Brazil and European countries. Another remarkable result of this study is that tourism and hospitality discipline has focused on local food subject, especially in the last five years.Originality/valueThis is one of the first attempts by using network analysis to directly understand and visualize the interrelated structures of the local food research. Furthermore, the results of this study may provide researchers a reference guide to better evaluate and monitor local food research.