This thesis addresses the deep-rooted systemic issue of food justice, through the development of a Food Security & Sustainability Hub in Northampton, Massachusetts. As part of the thesis process, I initiated engagement with local stakeholders and organizations using established practices of public interest design. This included a series of meetings and site visits with the leaders of a nonprofit social justice farm in Northampton, MA. These conversations shaped the project scope and design. In doing so, the thesis project tested ideas about social process and the overarching role of discourse in design. My hope is that through thoughtful analysis and engagement through the lens of a real project, I can contribute to this ongoing conversation and inform future pursuits.

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京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第24775号 / 経博第670号 / 新制||経||303(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 久野 秀二, 教授 田中 彰, 准教授 WANG Tao / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

This dissertation explores relationships between Christian communities, ecological theology, food and meal patterns, and planetary wellbeing amid changing climates in the Plantationocene. The thesis is that a process theology of the Eucharist provides a framework for Christian sacramental theology to respond to the dynamic conditions of food amid changing climates on Earth by prioritizing processes of restoring and sustaining communion with God and all our creaturely kindred in ecological wellbeing. This dissertation presents and develops the process theology of Norman Pittenger, a Christian process theologian and theological interpreter of Alfred North Whitehead. By critically retrieving Norman Pittenger’s process ecclesiology, I aim to encourage Christian process theology to develop theological perspectives of sacramentality as celebrated through the church and Christian life for the wellbeing of the planet. In addition to developing a process theology of the Eucharist, this dissertation also lays foundations for a broader process theology of meals that seeks to respond to the dynamic conditions of food in changing climates in modernity. Weaving together the work of Theodore Walker, Jr., William T. Cavanaugh, Catherine Keller, Nick Estes, S. Yael Dennis, Filipe Maia, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, and William Cronon, I critique modernity as a paradigm of commodifying relationships that depend on isolating people from one another and dismembering ecosystems for capital profit. I identify modernity’s meals as products of and contributors to anthropogenic climate change in the Plantationocene that depend upon processes of commodification and dismemberment of ecological bodies. How humans eat matters for the wellbeing of the world. For many Christians, the Eucharist meal is central to relationship with God and other people. The particularities of local eucharistic communities influence how the church experiences eucharistic relationships with God. Likewise, experiences of the Eucharist influence the particularities that characterize any local church. This dissertation contends that encountering cosmic Love in the Eucharist meal transforms the church to reveal and enact love in all our meals, promoting planetary wellbeing through food justice and ecological health.

This study examines the historical-geographic development of agriculture in Philadelphia in order to better understand the city’s contemporary urban agriculture movement. More specifically, the study provides historical context to the contemporary application of racial justice practices within urban farming initiatives in Philadelphia by uncovering and critically analyzing key aspects of the city’s history that have created agriculture-related injustice. Three methodological tools were used in this study: archival historical analysis, secondary source historical analysis, and scholar-activist collaboration. The period of study centers around the settler-colonial period of the city’s history but spans from the era of Lenape territorial control to the consolidation of the modern city in 1854. Three historical-geographic antecedents to contemporary racial justice practices within urban agriculture were uncovered and examined through this research: the settler-colonial terra nullius myth, the patriarchalization of food and land systems, and the urban-rural plantation complex. The results of this study highlight the many layers of intersectional food and land injustice within which that today’s iteration of agriculture in Philadelphia is embedded. / Geography

<p dir="ltr">Scholars and activists in the fields of food justice and policy believe that our food system needs changing because it is unjust, unhealthy, and incapable of addressing the needs of consumers, especially poorer and more vulnerable consumers. But policy change has been halting at every level, from local to global. The emerging concept of food literacy is a promising avenue to improve health equity and achieve food justice. Food movements around the world have played a key role in organizing education campaigns for children and adults to improve food-related knowledge and behavior. However, political scientists have yet to fully explore 1) what strategies successful food movements use to get food literacy initiatives adopted, and 2) how adoption strategies and food literacy initiatives vary across countries with different food practices, policy processes, and cultural expectations about food and dining practices. This dissertation seeks to answer these questions through a comparative study of local-level youth food literacy initiatives inspired by Farm to School and Slow Food, leading food movements in the U.S. and Italy. Through qualitative interviews with key actors involved in food education and procurement, I explore the meaning of food literacy and how actors in the U.S. and Italy are using food education to expand knowledge of local food systems and, ultimately, to change those food systems. I find that to actors in both countries, food literacy means the knowledge that can help us understand and judge the complex interdependence between the processes, resources, and actors involved in producing and marketing the food we eat every day. Food literacy also empowers civic engagement: it can transform food consumers who want to see change into citizens who feel entitled to demand institutional change. The forms of governance usually seen in this context consist in voluntary, decentralized, local-level partnerships between local government and schools, civil society, food movement activists/volunteers, and local farmers.</p>

Leaders within the black community are among the most important assets for black people in America. Given all that black Americans have experienced and still endure from social, economic, and political disenfranchisement, it is necessary to explore the values, beliefs, experiences, and practices of current leaders or those organizing for food justice with youth in black communities. This research explored the experiences of self-determination and empowerment of African American community organizers and educators, providing community-based educational opportunities to youth. It also sought to understand the values, beliefs, and experiences of the participant leaders pertaining to community empowerment, youth development, and food justice. A critical race theory (Bell, 1987; Crenshaw, 1989; Delgado and Stefancic, 2012) lens was utilized to conduct a narrative analysis of 10 black leaders in the Triad area of North Carolina. The researcher inquiry involved a narrative interview, using narrative inquiry practices (Saldana, 2016) that were both audio and visually recorded. Narrative inquiry is a methodological tool for capturing and co-interpreting the personal stories of people, their personal experiences and their interpretations (Clandinin, 2007). A narrative videography was developed to reach a wider audience and include the direct experiences of black leaders. Upon completion of the data-collection process, the leaders were brought together to view the video and discuss excerpts from their narratives in a single focus group. The study itself explored each leaders' views on what food justice looks like in their community, how self-determination influences their approach to black youth development for food justice, and their experiences of racial and micro-aggressive barriers to their work. It was found that the participants were very knowledgeable about what they needed to secure food justice in their communities. It was also found that the leaders often experienced racism and sometimes it was internalized racism, which often led them to the work with black youth empowerment and community food justice. / Doctor of Philosophy / African Americans have been among the most disenfranchised and marginalized populations in American history (Anderson, 2001). Although today is not as physically reflective of this as the days of slavery and post-slavery Jim Crow, racism is still as pervasive now as it was then, (Alexander, 2010). Critical Race Theory is the theoretical lens of this study thought it is primarily utilized in modern law to understand the presence of race discrimination in the decision making of court officials (Dixson & Rousseau, 2006). This research was a narrative inquiry exploration to understand the experiences of self-determination and empowerment of African American community organizers and educators providing educational opportunities to youth for food justice. The researcher utilized narrative inquiry as methodology in a community-based context to explore the perceptions and attitudes of African American leaders as organizers and educators in the Triad area of North Carolina as they pertain to community empowerment, youth development, and food justice. Using a critical race theory lens, each of the 10 adult participants had been identified as an asset to the black community regarding agriculture and youth empowerment practices. They were then interviewed after consent to audio and visual recording. Influenced by the Whole Measures for Community Food Systems (Abi-Nader et. al, 2009), interview questions were developed and applied to highlight the values and beliefs associated with a just community food system, efforts to counter unjust food access and the racism within it. Participants were asked to contribute to a single collective focus group discussing various excerpts from their narratives. Findings support that each participant was knowledgeable of the food justice issues and what was needed to create it in the communities they worked. Participants expressed several themes related to critical race theory, critical pedagogy and community food work.

Children are among those most directly affected by food insecurity, a condition in which households lack access to adequate food because of money or other resources (Gundersen & Ziliak, 2015). According to the latest United States Department of Agriculture (2016) reporting, 1 in 5 children experiences hunger on a daily basis. That ratio increases for African American and Latino children whom experience 1 in 3 ratios. While many programs exist to address this growing problem among youth and impoverished families, the efficacy of those programs is yet to be determined and the problem of hunger in America persists. This qualitative research study utilized an innovative methodological approach to explore youth food justice narratives from two cross-town middle schools in Kentucky. Through the use of photos, students identified several factors that influence their ability to meet their food needs and areas of inequity within their community. Strategies were provided for policymakers and educators to address these issues.

This thesis explores the social dynamics of community gardens and their participation within them in the contemporary food justice movement in Seattle, Washington. Community gardens are seen as solutions to myriad urban and environmental problems, such as food deserts, community empowerment, urban greening, environmental education and sustainability of the food system. Three case studies of Seattle organizations, the P-Patch Program, Lettuce Link and Alleycat Acres, provide a basis for analysis of the purported benefit of community empowerment as a function of organizational structure, history and policies. City government support, flexibility, and a critical outlook towards the processes of inclusion and methods of fostering community-based leadership are found to be essential to a garden project. However, the definition of who is the ‘community’ in a community garden is called into question as more potential stakeholders and beneficiaries emerge in a changing and increasingly interconnected city. These networks of organizations and activists, complicated as they may be are a boon to the community gardening scene as they increase avenues for access for more Seattleites to healthy, local food. Community gardens are another representation of the current global movements against social inequalities, and therefore, to take full advantage of this opportunity for social change, community garden organizers must remain critically conscious of who is included and how this participation occurs.

This study uses the concepts of everyday politics and cultural resistance to explore how young people are experimenting with ‘free spaces’ in which to develop alternative ideas and practices within the food justice movement. Through a case study of the Spring Ridge Commons – a youth-generated free space – this research describes how youth are redefining relationships to place and to people by practicing alternative foodways like urban foraging; creating decommodified food sources; sharing skills and knowledge through peer-to-peer networks; building community through relationships of mutual support; and experimenting with non-hierarchical governance. Such practices have potential implications for child and youth care such as: reconnecting youth and adults through shared practice and meaningful work in “real life” politics and community building, reconceptualizing 'youth' and 'adult' such that both have greater access to acts of cultural production, and creating experiences of democracy in everyday life. / Graduate