Nurturing Food Justice

Expansive and Intersectional Visions

How diverse communities are finding new ways to grow food, build movements, and challenge institutions to create more just and sustainable food futures.

Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are working to create more just and sustainable worlds. An expansive follow-up to the field-defining Cultivating Food Justice, this edited volume provides an overview of food justice scholar-activism, redefining the field and looking to theoretical and political futures. The contributors synthesize and analyze the findings of food justice research to imagine socioecological relationships that are both environmentally sustainable and socially just. They tell new stories of what food justice is, what it is for, and what it can become.

The contributors, who include a racially diverse group of scholars, students, and activists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds across the US, highlight the inward-facing movement work of communities envisioning and enacting their own food- and land-based traditions, as well as external work as they build alliances with institutions and kindred social movements.
Series Foreword ix
Touching Dirt, Together: On Nurturing in and Beyond the Political Moment xi

Introduction: Nurturing Just and Sustainable Food Futures 1
Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

I Dreams
1 A North Star Politics of Emancipation: How Radical and BIPOC Traditions Influence Food Movement Strategies 25
Antonio Roman-Alcala

2 Queering Food Justice: Confronting White Heteropatriarchy in US Agriculture 39
Michaela Hoffelmeyer and Isaac Sohn Leslie

3 Toward a Decolonial Cuisine: The Entangled Politics of Food Revitalization in Native-Led Culinary Organizations 55
Ash McLeod and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

4 Plotting Our Legacy: Radical Black Ecology from the Provisional Plot to the Garden Lot 71
Alexis Wiley and Akilah Chatman

5 Healing Colonial Wounds: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Land Back, and Cultural Resurgence 85
Charlotte Cote (Tseshaht Nuu-chah-nulth)

II Confrontations
6 From Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Origins, Histories, and Solutions 105
Gabriel R. Valle and Greig Tor Guthey

7 Gentrification, White Privilege, and the Political Shift from Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Reflections from a Millennial Food Justice Scholar 119
Justin Sean Myers

8 No Justice Without Land: The Struggle for Autonomy in the San Diego Urban Agricultural Movement 131
Belinda C. Ramirez

9 Undoing Coloniality Through Nutrition Narratives 147
Lucy Aphramor

III Encounters
10 Food Assistance Justice: The Discourse and Practice of Food Justice in US Food Banks 163
Alana Haynes Stein

11 Street Food Justice 177
Charlotte Glennie Roberts and Catherine Brinkley

12 Digitizing Food Justice: How Community-Powered Tech Tools Are Being Used to Redesign Neighborhoods and Reimagine Food Justice 191
Antwi Akom, Tessa Cruz, and Analena Hope Hassberg

13 Decolonized, Community-Rooted™ Food Justice: The Process of Shifting Power and Decision-Making in Food System Planning Processes 207
Kamal Bell, Natalie Eley, Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Justin Robinson, Camryn Smith, Gizem Templeton, Gretchen Thompson, and Jen Zuckerman

14 White Masculinist Pasts → Black Feminist Futures: Lessons from Spelman College's Victory Garden as Black World-Making 223
Whitney Barr and Nik Heynen

15 Disrupting the Narrative: Youth Storytelling for Food Justice 237
Laurel Bellante, Megan A. Carney, Deyanira Ibarra, Mary Beth Jager, Nelda Ruiz, Claudio Rodriguez, Tommey Jodie, Kaleigh Brown, Rezwana Islam, and Amrita Khalsa

IV Intersections
16 New Openings for Worker Justice in the Food System: A Call for Centering Labor in Food Justice 253
Teresa M. Mares and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

17 Creating Labor Sovereignty: Worker-Driven Movements for Justice 267
Vera Chang

18 First Food Equity: A Reparative Approach 283
Chellamal Keshavan

19 The Green New Deal and the Future of Food Justice 297
Maggie Dickinson

20 From Carceral Food Systems to Abolitionist Food Justice 311
Joshua Sbicca, Carrie Freshour, Kanav Kathuria, and Sara Black

21 Concluding Thoughts 327
Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

Index 335

About

How diverse communities are finding new ways to grow food, build movements, and challenge institutions to create more just and sustainable food futures.

Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are working to create more just and sustainable worlds. An expansive follow-up to the field-defining Cultivating Food Justice, this edited volume provides an overview of food justice scholar-activism, redefining the field and looking to theoretical and political futures. The contributors synthesize and analyze the findings of food justice research to imagine socioecological relationships that are both environmentally sustainable and socially just. They tell new stories of what food justice is, what it is for, and what it can become.

The contributors, who include a racially diverse group of scholars, students, and activists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds across the US, highlight the inward-facing movement work of communities envisioning and enacting their own food- and land-based traditions, as well as external work as they build alliances with institutions and kindred social movements.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword ix
Touching Dirt, Together: On Nurturing in and Beyond the Political Moment xi

Introduction: Nurturing Just and Sustainable Food Futures 1
Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

I Dreams
1 A North Star Politics of Emancipation: How Radical and BIPOC Traditions Influence Food Movement Strategies 25
Antonio Roman-Alcala

2 Queering Food Justice: Confronting White Heteropatriarchy in US Agriculture 39
Michaela Hoffelmeyer and Isaac Sohn Leslie

3 Toward a Decolonial Cuisine: The Entangled Politics of Food Revitalization in Native-Led Culinary Organizations 55
Ash McLeod and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

4 Plotting Our Legacy: Radical Black Ecology from the Provisional Plot to the Garden Lot 71
Alexis Wiley and Akilah Chatman

5 Healing Colonial Wounds: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Land Back, and Cultural Resurgence 85
Charlotte Cote (Tseshaht Nuu-chah-nulth)

II Confrontations
6 From Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Origins, Histories, and Solutions 105
Gabriel R. Valle and Greig Tor Guthey

7 Gentrification, White Privilege, and the Political Shift from Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Reflections from a Millennial Food Justice Scholar 119
Justin Sean Myers

8 No Justice Without Land: The Struggle for Autonomy in the San Diego Urban Agricultural Movement 131
Belinda C. Ramirez

9 Undoing Coloniality Through Nutrition Narratives 147
Lucy Aphramor

III Encounters
10 Food Assistance Justice: The Discourse and Practice of Food Justice in US Food Banks 163
Alana Haynes Stein

11 Street Food Justice 177
Charlotte Glennie Roberts and Catherine Brinkley

12 Digitizing Food Justice: How Community-Powered Tech Tools Are Being Used to Redesign Neighborhoods and Reimagine Food Justice 191
Antwi Akom, Tessa Cruz, and Analena Hope Hassberg

13 Decolonized, Community-Rooted™ Food Justice: The Process of Shifting Power and Decision-Making in Food System Planning Processes 207
Kamal Bell, Natalie Eley, Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Justin Robinson, Camryn Smith, Gizem Templeton, Gretchen Thompson, and Jen Zuckerman

14 White Masculinist Pasts → Black Feminist Futures: Lessons from Spelman College's Victory Garden as Black World-Making 223
Whitney Barr and Nik Heynen

15 Disrupting the Narrative: Youth Storytelling for Food Justice 237
Laurel Bellante, Megan A. Carney, Deyanira Ibarra, Mary Beth Jager, Nelda Ruiz, Claudio Rodriguez, Tommey Jodie, Kaleigh Brown, Rezwana Islam, and Amrita Khalsa

IV Intersections
16 New Openings for Worker Justice in the Food System: A Call for Centering Labor in Food Justice 253
Teresa M. Mares and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

17 Creating Labor Sovereignty: Worker-Driven Movements for Justice 267
Vera Chang

18 First Food Equity: A Reparative Approach 283
Chellamal Keshavan

19 The Green New Deal and the Future of Food Justice 297
Maggie Dickinson

20 From Carceral Food Systems to Abolitionist Food Justice 311
Joshua Sbicca, Carrie Freshour, Kanav Kathuria, and Sara Black

21 Concluding Thoughts 327
Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

Index 335

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