Communities of color in particular have experienced a traumatic history of structural violence, interpersonal racism, segregation, and oppression. The unjust history of structural violence and the deleterious treatment of people and cultures in the U.S., that in part stems from neoliberal policies and rationality, continues to plague communities and people within the food system. Many people and communities are working to actualize the social-ethical ideal of a non-violent 'beloved community' to counter this unjust history and expand the boundaries of what is possible for individuals and society. Historical and systemic injustices ramify the adverse experiences and trauma affecting vulnerable people's lives. The effects and pervasiveness of individual and collective trauma at a global scale has highlighted a serious need for broader-scale awareness and adoption of a trauma-informed care approach by community food work organizations, practitioners, and social change leaders. A trauma-informed care approach was developed as a health care framework based on the importance of adverse childhood events to poor distal health and mental health outcomes. Without a deeper understanding of how extensive the collective impact of such trauma and injustice is on people and the food system; community food work researchers and practitioners may reify uninformed responses that result in continued trauma and injustice. However, there are few examples of community food work organizations using a trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process to promote community transformation and resilience. This research examined and specifically analyzed how a community food work organization that is engaged in mutual aid and social-ecological activism embodies trauma-informed care; engenders an agential change space; and grapples with the aspirations and tensions of being an organization seeking to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic trauma and expand the boundaries of what is possible individually and collectively. A narrative inquiry methodology was used to critically explore and study the perceptions and thoughts of 17 study participants of how a trauma-informed approach to care is embodied and agential change space provided as mutual aid and community food work. The seventeen study participants' narratives were coded and analyzed using the Principles of a Trauma-Informed Care Framework defined by SAMHSA (2014), Bowen and Murshid (2016), and Hecht et al (2018). The narrative inquiry of seventeen narratives demonstrated that an integrated trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process is essential to the formation of agential change space and has wide-reaching applicability to mutual aid efforts and community food work pedagogy and praxis, especially as organizations and practitioners confront ongoing systemic trauma and injustices that have resulted from structural violence and continue to persist due to the dominant hegemonic neoliberal framing that exists in relation to race, gender, and socioeconomic class. / Doctor of Philosophy / Communities of color in particular have experienced a traumatic history of structural violence, interpersonal racism, segregation, and oppression. The unjust history of structural violence and the deleterious treatment of people and cultures in the U.S., that in part stems from neoliberal policies and rationality, continues to plague communities and the food system. Many people and communities are working to actualize the social-ethical ideal of a non-violent 'beloved community' to counter this unjust history and expand the boundaries of what is possible individually and collectively. Without a deeper understanding of how extensive the collective impact of such trauma and injustice is on people and the food system; community food work researchers and practitioners may reify uninformed responses that result in continued trauma and injustice. However, there are few examples of community food work organizations using a trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process to promote food system transformation. This research examined the ecotonal nature of community food work and specifically analyzed how a community food work organization that is engaged in mutual aid and social-ecological activism embodies trauma-informed care; engenders an agential change space; and grapples with the aspirations and tensions of being an organization seeking to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic trauma and expand the boundaries of what is possible individually and collectively. A case study and narrative inquiry methodology was used to critically explore perceptions and thoughts of 17 study participants and stakeholders of meaningful support as embodying a trauma-informed care approach and participative interaction as engendering agential change space as mutual aid and community food work. The seventeen study participants' narratives were coded and analyzed using the Principles of a Trauma-Informed Care Framework defined by SAMHSA (2014), Bowen and Murshid (2016), and Hecht et al. (2018). The narrative inquiry of seventeen narratives demonstrated that an integrated trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process is essential to the formation of agential change space and has wide-reaching applicability to mutual aid efforts and community food work as pedagogy and praxis, especially as organizations and practitioners confront ongoing systemic trauma and injustices that have resulted from structural violence and continue to persist due to the dominant hegemonic neoliberal framing that exists in relation to race, gender, and socioeconomic class.

Historically, many faith-based hunger relief efforts address food insecurity through the emergency food system, but they often do not challenge the systemic causes of the need, which according to some, are poverty and inequality. As a promising alternative, community food work is a radical approach to food system change that imbues values of justice, sustainability, and equity into the food system to reduce the pervasiveness of poverty and inequality in society. I used narrative inquiry as methodology in a faith-based context to explore the role of criticality in community food work. Additionally, I explored the treatment of hegemony in these practitioners' critically reflective practice. I engaged six practitioners in narrative-based interviews and subsequently asked them to read and analyze their own interview. I then gathered all participants for a collective reflection session where we reflected on excerpts from the interviews and used them as a foundation for further dialogue and reflection. Each practitioner used their faith to varying degrees in the performance of their work. I found significant notions of feeling called to serve, and bringing God's kingdom to earth, but an avoidance to use this work to evangelize. The narratives reflected community food work as a community development effort and extended beyond the context of food. Affirming, trusting relationships serve as a foundation to how this group of practitioners approach their work, and provide the space to interact with their work in radical ways and raise critical consciousness. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

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.

In the United States, the community food movement has been put forward as a potential solution for a global food system that fails to provide just and equitable access to nutritious food. This claim has been subject to the criticism of a variety of scholars and activists, some of whom contend that the alternative food movement is complicit in the re-production of neoliberalism and is therefore implicated in the making of the unjust system. In this dissertation I use theories of Deleuze (and Guatarri) and science and technology scholars to enter the middle of this dichotomy. I argue that both readings of community food work, as just and unjust, rely on realist epistemologies that posit knowledge as representative of an existing reality. I alternatively view knowledge as much more contingent and plural, resulting in a multiplicity of realities that are much less fixed. The idea that reality is a product of knowledge, rather than the inverse, raises the question of how reality might be made differently, or of ontological politics. This is the question I set out to interrogate: how might the realities of community food work be read and made differently, and how this reading might open new possibilities for transformation? To explore this question, I conducted interviews with 18 individuals working for three different non-profit community food organizations in central Appalachia. I used and appreciative inquiry approach to capture stories that affected these individuals' stories about their work captured their visions and hope for food system change. I then used a (non)method, rhizoanalysis, to code the data affectively, reading for the interesting, curious, and remarkable, rather than attempting to trace a strong theory like neoliberalism onto the data. Drawing on Delueze and Guattari, I mapped excerpts from the data into four large narrative cartographies. In each cartography, the narrative excerpts are positioned to vibrate against one another; my hope is that these resonances might open lines of flight within the reader and space for new ontological possibilities. For adult and community educators, I posit this rhizoanalysis as a poststructuralist contribution to Freire's concept of the generative theme and of use to broader project of agonistic pluralism. / Ph. D.