Growing just foodscapes: A case study of East New York Farms
Item
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Title
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Growing just foodscapes: A case study of East New York Farms
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:ac1ed7ace2d8:11811
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identifier
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12405
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Creator
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Myers, Justin,
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Contributor
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Kenneth Gould
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology | Environmental studies | alternative food movement | east new york farms | food justice | local food movement
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Abstract
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There is a growing literature focusing on the social problems of industrial agriculture and food deserts. The former critiques industrial agriculture for being environmentally unsustainable, putting small farmers out of business, and making people unhealthy. Instead, it looks to the alternative food movement and how small-scale local production and consumption networks can be a viable counter to industrial agriculture. The latter focuses on where and whether food deserts exist, the effects of living in food deserts, and how to increase fruit and vegetable consumption for residents living in food deserts. However, neither of these literatures have generally focused on how lower income communities are responding to the social problems of industrial agriculture and food deserts. Many lower income and nonwhite communities are self-organizing to address food deserts, food flight, and food redlining by re-building local food economies under the slogan of food justice, spaces I refer to as just foodscapes .;This research interjects into the literature on industrial agriculture, food deserts, and the alternative food movement through a case study of a food justice organization located in a lower income African-American and Caribbean community in Brooklyn, that of East New York Farms!. In focusing on how East New York Farms! is self-organizing to address inequities in the food system, how race and class positionalities shape its food justice projects, and how its food justice projects attempt to realize social justice and environmental sustainability this research documents four major aspects of the food justice movement. First, food deserts are not natural but social products of particular political, economic, and racial processes. Second, public subsidy of farmers markets is necessary in order to produce these market spaces as a win-win for out-of-town farmers and lower income consumers. Third, race and class positionalities are central to the ecological, economic, and cultural processes embedded in food justice movements. Fourth, food justice organizations frame food justice as an alternative to both the corporate dominated conventional food system and the race and class privileged alternative food movement, one that seeks to create an anti-racist food movement as well as a food system devoid of institutional racism.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
