Food justice youth development: using Photovoice to study urban school food systems*

How do youth learn through participation in efforts to study and change the school food system? Through our participatory youth action research (YPAR) project, we move beyond the “youth as consumer” frame to a food justice youth development (FJYD) approach. We track how a group of youth learned about food and the public policy process through their efforts to transform their own school food systems by conducting a participatory evaluation of farm-to-school efforts in collaboration with university and community partners. We used the Photovoice research method, placing cameras in the hands of young people so that they themselves could document and discuss their concerns and perspectives. The research was designed to gain insight about youths’ knowledge of food, health, and community food systems. Drawing upon the youth group’s insights, we build a framework for building critical consciousness through FJYD.     

Capacity building for food justice in England: the contribution of charity-led community food initiatives

This paper discusses the extent to which charity-led initiatives can contribute to capacity building for food justice in England. The paper draws on evaluations of two projects run by the charity Garden Organic: the Master Gardener Programme, operating a network of volunteers who mentor households, schools and community groups to support local food growing, and the Sowing New Seeds programme, which engages “Seed Stewards” to work with communities to encourage the growing and cooking of “exotic” crops. Based on qualitative data about peoples’ motivations for participation and the benefits that are experienced, we interpret these projects as examples of capacity building for food justice. We suggest that whilst currently depoliticised, the “quiet” process of reskilling and awareness raising that occurs through shared gardening projects could have transformative potential for people’s relationship with food. Finally, we use our findings to raise critical questions and propose future research about food justice concepts and practices.     

“The right to food is nature too”: food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement

In El Salvador a growing permaculture movement attunes small-scale farming activities to principles of ecological observation. The premise is twofold: close-grained appreciation of already-interacting biophysical processes allows for the design of complementary social and agricultural systems requiring minimum energy inputs. Secondly, the insistence on campesino smallholders as actors in the design of sustainable food systems directly addresses decades of “top-down” developmental interventions, from Green Revolution experiments in the 1960s and 1970s to international food security programmes in the 1990s. Permaculture connects food insecurity to the delegitimisation of smallholder innovation and insists that, through sharing simple techniques, campesino farmers can contribute towards future-oriented questions of environmental sustainability. This repositioning is brought about through the mobilisation of pedagogical techniques that legitimise the experiences and expertise of small-scale farmers, while standardising experimental methods for testing, evaluating and sharing agroecological practices. Like food sovereignty and food justice movements, Salvadoran permaculture links hunger with longer histories of (uneven) capital accumulation and dispossession and renders campesino farmers its protagonists. By modelling a form of expertise premised in intimate involvement with specific environments, permaculture goes still further, seeking to dislodge a pervasive knowledge politics that situates some as knowers and innovators, and others as passive recipients. This grounds human rights in an ethos of caring for the “more-than-human” world and places emphasis on a corollary right as part of food justice, increasingly being demanded “from below”: the right to know.     

Selective Patronage and Social Justice: Local Food Consumer Campaigns in Historical Context

In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns. Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities for social justice concerns in Buy Local Food campaigns, by considering them within the more general category of “selective patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair trade.     

“The Lucky country”? A critical exploration of community gardens and city–community relations in Australian cities

Urban agriculture (UA) has the potential to expand beyond the grassroots level to meet the social, cultural, economic and food needs of urban dwellers. At its core, UA represents an alternative use of urban space that occurs with or without government support or approval. The experiences of community gardeners and their views of, and engagement in, community gardens as a form of UA, or local “alternative food networks”, is a focal point of this paper. Relying on Australian city case studies, this paper explores community gardens, using critical urban approaches concerning “rights to the city” and diverse economies. Findings from this study reveal how community gardeners understand and participate in diverse economies and extended local food networks. They also identify respondents’ views of local councils as barriers to the emergence of community gardens, and other forms of UA, as a local response to growing concerns over impacts of the global food chain on food security. In contrast to other Western cities, effective city–community relations for community garden growth have yet to emerge in Australian cities, as key policy areas for urban sustainability and social cohesion.     

Does The World Need U.S. Farmers Even If Americans Don’t?

We consider the implications of trends in the number of U.S. farmers and food imports on the question of what role U.S. farmers have in an increasingly global agrifood system. Our discussion stems from the argument some scholars have made that American consumers can import their food more cheaply from other countries than it can produce it. We consider the distinction between U.S. farmers and agriculture and the effect of the U.S. food footprint on developing nations to argue there might be an important role for U.S. farmers, even if it appears Americans don’t need them. For instance, we may need to protect U.S. farmland and, by implication, U.S. farmers, for future food security needs both domestic and international. We also explore the role of U.S. farmers by considering the question of whether food is a privilege or a right. Although Americans seem to accept that food is a privilege, many scholars and commentators argue that, at least on a global scale, food is a right, particularly for the world’s poor and hungry. If this is the case, then U.S. farmers might have a role in meeting the associated obligation to ensure that the poor of the world have enough food to eat. We look at the consequences of determining that food is a right versus a privilege and the implications of that decision for agricultural subsidies as well as U.S. agriculture and nutrition policies.     

Economic,ecological, and equity dimensions of brownfield redevelopment plans for environmental justice communities in the USA

ABSTRACT

This paper employs qualitative content analysis to assess 28 brownfield redevelopment plans produced as part of a US Environmental Protection Agency programme. The analysis framework followed the economic, ecological, and social equity dimensions of sustainable development. The findings illustrate that, in terms of economic dimensions, most plans discussed financing the overall project, but few mentioned site values or the pivotal cost of remediating brownfield sites or addressed questions related to liability, the transfer of ownership of sites, or the end use of remediated sites. In terms of ecological dimensions, while many plans suggested “green” uses of existing brownfields, few discussed the impacts of the plans on urban ecological issues or offered technical feasibility of remediating the sites. In terms of social equity dimensions, half of the plans described potential local jobs stemming from the proposed redevelopment, but many did not discuss the human impacts of remediating contaminated sites or the costs of doing nothing. Most plans mentioned community engagement methods but not their outcomes, making the degree to which the lessons gleaned from such engagement influenced the plans totally unclear. Despite the programme’s explicit focus on the nexus of environmental justice and local environments, many plans struggled to address the topic in favour of tackling broader economic, environmental, and equity issues. Overall, this paper contributes to the understanding of brownfield redevelopment planning by not only summarising and synthesising the tendencies of existing plans but also suggesting strategies to address areas in which current planning efforts fall short.     

Community knowledge networks: an action-orientated approach to energy research

The Climate Change Act 2008 commits the UK to reducing carbon emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. With household emissions constituting more than a quarter of current total energy use in the UK, energy practices in the home have taken on increased policy attention. In this paper, we argue that the UK government's approach is founded upon a variant of methodological individualism that assumes that providing greater energy information to individuals will effect behaviour change in relation to energy use. Such an approach is potentially limited in its effectiveness and does not afford appropriate recognition to all those affected by energy policy. In contrast to this approach, we set out an alternative perspective, a community knowledge networks approach to energy and justice which recognises the contexts and relationships in which people live and use energy. Such an approach emphasises situated knowledge and practices in order to gain a greater understanding of how individuals and communities use energy, but, importantly, offers a means for affording greater recognitional justice to different social groups.     

Choosing a Food Future: Differentiating Among Alternative Food Options

This article examines the diversity of food networks that fit within the alternative food system of the United States. While farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture schemes, and corporate organic food markets all fit within the alternative food system, they differ greatly in the conventions and beliefs that they represent. The alternative food system has divided into two movements: corporate, weak alternative food networks; and local, strong alternative food networks. The weak corporate version focuses on protecting the environment; however, it neglects issues concerning labor standards, animal welfare, rural communities, small-scale farmers, and human health. Local, strong alternative food networks not only assure environmental protection, but they also address the issues that weak alternatives neglect. Using three case studies from the Washington, D.C. metro area, the author explains that strong alternative food networks are better suited to create social and political change because they challenge the foundations of the conventional food system: standardized and generic products, price-based competition, consolidated power, and global scale. To affect true social and political change in the United States, the author recommends supporting strong alternative food networks by creating the requisite cultural and political space for them to succeed.     

Contemporary and traditional localism: a conceptualisation of rural local food

The increasingly popular local food movement in the US has experienced wide-scale buy-in on behalf of the general public as well as in academic arenas. However, there have been recent efforts to critique this movement, typically for being inequitable and unfairly geared towards those with above-average financial means. In this article, I examine local food efforts and present a new conceptualisation of food localism. While geographically localised food consumption activities are taking place, some have ideological labels attached to them, whereas others do not. What I have termed contemporary and traditional localisms exist in the same physical but different social space. The contemporary local is represented by current local food initiatives and corresponding aspirations to support local farmers and to promote sustainability through local purchasing behaviour. The traditional local, on the other hand, is similar in that it represents food growing activities that are in close geographical proximity to consumption, but lacks the motivation associated with the contemporary local's programmatic literature; instead, it is guided by a motivation to obtain fresh and affordable food. I substantiate the contemporary/traditional localism framework with qualitative fieldwork findings from Grafton County, New Hampshire, USA, and describe the practical as well as conceptual implications of this framework.     

Seeking Indigenous food sovereignty: origins of and responses to the food crisis in northern Manitoba,Canada

A food crisis confronts many Indigenous communities in northwestern Canada, as reflected by wide-scale food insecurity and diet-related disease. South-generated responses to this crisis generally disregard principles of Indigenous food sovereignty and are disengaged from concerns related to environmental and food justice. This study seeks to explore the needs and priorities of a First Nation (Misipawistik Cree Nation) and an associated Métis community (Grand Rapids) regarding existing and potential responses to the food crisis in northern Manitoba. Substantial changes to the traditional food system were initiated during the establishment of the reserve system in the 1800s and now extend to damage associated with hydro development. Responses to these changes were categorised according to themes and include the revival of country food traditions, individual and community gardens, agriculture in the North, and better quality imported foods. Regardless of response, decision-making needs to be community-driven, culturally appropriate, to reflect local priorities in order to effectively address the northern food crisis, and, ultimately, needs to work towards Indigenous food sovereignty to be effective.     

Practicing food justice at Dig Deep Farms & Produce,East Bay Area,California: self-determination as a guiding value and intersections with foodie logics

This article describes Dig Deep Farms & Produce, a food justice organisation and urban farm working to stimulate local economic development, create jobs, and improve the quality and accessibility of food in Ashland and Cherryland in California's Bay Area. Their practices are based on self-determined values although they take a flexible, anti-essentialist approach to foodie logics, which are prominent and problematic in the Bay Area. The case study then examines specific practices and strategies, as well as intersections with foodie logics, in three arenas – values determination, strategic partnerships, and foodways – that help to cultivate food justice and highlights key characteristics of food justice work: emphasising self-determination and working to fundamentally change the economic and social conditions of food apartheid.     

Mobilisation and protest: environmental justice in Durban,South Africa

This paper examines the ability of civil society actors to champion environmental justice in an industrial risk society in South Africa by way of mobilisation and protest action. This paper presents viewpoints from key stakeholders at the Durban city level and three local case study sites to examine social capital relations to achieve environmental justice. It explores how civil society engages in social capital for mobilisation with itself and subsequent protest actions to engage with government and industry. The paper highlights that social actor response to engage in social capital for mobilisation and protests is best understood in relation to the socio-economic and political positioning of individuals or organisations.     

Co-creating an alternative: the moral economy of participating in farmers’ markets

Growing dissatisfaction with the globalised food system, articulated on the behalf of both producers and consumers, has caused a variety of public debates surrounding the ethics of food production and consumption to become increasingly visible in society over the last two decades. Simultaneously, farmers’ markets (FMs) and other forms of direct marketing have experienced a noteworthy increase in participants, indicating an emerging demand for an alternative to conventional food networks, alternatives that are often perceived as providing a more just and moral relationship to food production and consumption. This study examines consumer and producer motivations for participation in FMs and opinions towards conventional and alternative agriculture in order to elucidate what (if any) values and morals are shared among producers and consumers. This study draws upon the theoretical framework of moral economy to understand whether these shared values suggest FM participants are working to co-create an alternative economy based on “moral” principles such as fairness, justice, and reciprocity. This mixed-methods study consists of consumer surveys (N?=?377) and semi-structured interviews with producers (N?=?17) from five FMs in the state of Delaware. The results suggest that producer and consumer motivations to participate in FMs, particularly a shared emphasis on social value, are indicative of a sense of moral economy. However, this moral economy is complicated by tension towards consumers and the alternative food movement more generally expressed on behalf of producers.     

Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in Eastern Ontario

Despite their opposition to the dominant agri-food system, alternative agri-food initiatives may unwittingly reproduce central features of neoliberalism. Julie Guthman has been a particularly strong proponent of this view, arguing that food activism and neoliberalism have shaped one another dialectically in California in recent decades. This paper responds to her argument, with a view to distinguishing between what it reveals and what it may conceal about the transformative potential of alternative agri-food initiatives in North America. Drawing on primary research on a variety of community-based food initiatives in Eastern Ontario, Canada, we show how a neoliberal lens does help to illuminate some problematic characteristics of these initiatives, including assumptions about market-based solutions and focus on self-improvement at the expense of state involvement. However, this lens underestimates those aspects of community-based food initiatives that may appear commensurate with neoliberal rationalities but which also push in more progressive directions.     

Health, Environmental and Social Justice

Health is a basic human right. Improving health requires social and environmental justice and sustainable development. The 'health for all' movement embraces principles shared by other social movements--in sustainable development, community safety and new economics. These principles include equity, democracy, empowerment of individuals and communities, underpinned by supportive environmental, economic and educational measures and multi-agency partnerships. Health promotion is green promotion and inequality in health is due to social and economic inequality. This paper shows how health, environmental and economic sustainability are inextricably linked and how professionals of different disciplines can work together with the communities they serve to improve local health and quality of life. It gives examples of how local policy and programme development for public health improvement can fit in with global and national policy-making to promote health, environmental and social justice.     

Leveraging foodways for health and justice

ABSTRACT

The global industrial food system is increasingly recognised as a source of poor health that deepens social and economic inequity. Health advocates, policy makers, and food activists strive to improve nutrition and food access across racial and ethnic divides; however, given established approaches, they may miss fundamental pathways for improving health and justice comprehensively. While food access and nutrition are often identified as primary concerns for marginalised communities and the reason for food insecurity and food-related illness, critical food justice scholars use a more expansive lens to suggest a democratised food system is needed, and that solutions based solely in access to healthy food can undermine more systemic approaches. Our research extends this analysis, highlighting the importance of endemic food culture (foodways) as a tool for retaining identity, building community, and maintaining health among refugee populations in one community in Salt Lake City, Utah. Further, this work suggests that community engagement and expertise is essential in leveraging foodways such that marginalised communities can effectively resist cheap, unhealthy, and placeless calories.     

“We can keep the fire burning”: building action competence through environmental justice education in Uganda and Germany

The global dimensions of climate change necessitate a response that takes national differences – social, economic, geographic, and cultural – into account. Action-oriented education has a key role to play in advancing citizen engagement in a culture of sustainability. This paper describes research conducted with one such education programme, Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC), which operates in six countries and engages university-aged youth in discussion and practice related to global sustainability, systems thinking, and environmental justice. YLEC aims to advance four key competencies; this paper focuses on the goal of action competence, which involves acquiring knowledge, reflecting on experience in the context of one’s values, envisioning alternative futures, and acting individually and collectively to advance those alternatives. The present article examines the impacts of YLEC on environmental action competence in two of the countries involved in this research: Uganda and Germany. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants in both countries to examine the development of action competence during and after the programme. Findings suggest that outcomes differed in each country, reflective of participants’ different lived experiences. YLEC effectively built on the conditions faced in each country to accompany youth to a higher level of awareness and action. These findings have implications for environmental education programmes striving to work with multiple nations and diverse participants.     

Health,Environmental and Social Justice

Health is a basic human right. Improving health requires social and environmental justice and sustainable development. The 'health for all' movement embraces principles shared by other social movements—in sustainable development, community safety and new economics. These principles include equity, democracy, empowerment of individuals and communities, underpinned by supportive environmental, economic and educational measures and multi-agency partnerships. Health promotion is green promotion and inequality in health is due to social and economic inequality. This paper shows how health, environmental and economic sustainability are inextricably linked and how professionals of different disciplines can work together with the communities they serve to improve local health and quality of life. It gives examples of how local policy and programme development for public health improvement can fit in with global and national policy-making to promote health, environmental and social justice.