Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

'Good Food’ And Food Sovereignty In The South Texas Borderlands: A Qualitative Investigation Of Alternative Retail Food Outlet Managers And Owners, Kanyanat Lertkhonsan

Theses and Dissertations

This case study describes how Alternative Retail Food Outlets (ARFOs) managers and owners in a county in South Texas near the U.S. – Mexico border I am calling Esperanza County, decide what food to eat and to sell. Data from qualitative interviews reveals that the South Texas socioeconomic – cultural context and informants’ economic constraints shaped two different conceptions of good food. At the same time, informants’ socioeconomic backgrounds and sources of good food reveals that the power to define good food – as organic, local, and seasonal – and those that can access it tend to be the educated …

Don’T Count On Kiwis At A Kiwi Farmers’ Market: Communicating Intersections Of Globalization And Local Food At Aotearoa New Zealand Farmers’ Markets, Travis Bartosh

Communication (PhD) Dissertations

The main question driving this study seeks to understand how New Zealand farmers’ markets represent and engage with global and local issues in relation to food production, distribution, and consumption. Under this question, three sub-questions seek to understand the discourses present at the markets, how these discourses insect with globalization and local food, and how this intersection works to organize contemporary farmers’ markets.

The findings for this dissertation are divided into three chapters. The first findings chapter lays out the discourses present in the data. These discourses are largely related to food producer sovereignty. The second findings chapter looks …

Agroecology Curriculum Proposal, Emily Kuhn

Pitzer Senior Theses

The purpose of this research is to establish the viability of an Agroecology major at Pitzer College. I begin by problematizing Industrial Agriculture and making a case for Pitzer College to become a higher education leader in the global paradigm shift towards socially and ecologically just food systems. The proposed curriculum compiles pre-existing classes, objectives expanded from the EA field group, and an internship component embedded at five local land-based learning partner sites. I conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the Environmental Analysis field group as a potential host for the agroecology track, including study abroad …

Walking In Both Worlds: Learning About Youth Priorities And Indigenous Food Sovereignty With DéLįNę’S Youth Council, Neala Macleod Farley

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Indigenous food sovereignty is vital to the protection and restoration of Indigenous food systems and to many Indigenous peoples’ health, culture, and traditions. Working towards Indigenous food sovereignty can also help to enable the protection and continued development of Indigenous knowledge and worldviews, which are becoming increasingly recognized for their potential to help transform unsustainable food systems and combat climate change. In Délįnę, Northwest Territories (NWT), re-establishing intergenerational knowledge transfer to today’s youth is an essential aspect of food sovereignty and the continuation of Dene worldviews. However, this is challenging for many youth as they face conflicting pressures from Western …

More Than A Meal : A Resource For Communities Striving For Food Sovereignty Through The Charitable Food System, Kaitlin J. Robertson

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The 2020 pandemic and economic crisis showcased the fragility of the American food system. In the months of quarantine and lockdowns, a growing number of Americans searched for ways to feed themselves and their families. Community-based and volunteer-supported feeding programs worked to bridge the divide between the hungry and their next meal. In many cases, these programs rely on an unpaid workforce and donations – of time, food, and facilities. With limited resources, volunteer-led programs often lack centralized training options; this guidebook seeks to fill that void. This project is a streamlined, introductory-level guide for volunteers and community members working …

Anti-Colonial Foodways: Food Sovereignty In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Clara Zervigon

Scripps Senior Theses

After centuries of colonization, the geographies and social relations of New Orleans are incredibly unequal. While many in the city were aware of this fact, the destruction brought on by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 laid bare all the problems built into the city’s environment and culture.

New Orleanians are subject to neocolonial power structures, and creating a more localized and democratic food system is a method in which we seek to subvert these systems. While this has been an ongoing process, Katrina both solidified the need and provided the conditions for greater change in our local foodways. In this thesis, …

Ethnography Of Urban Food Policy: Increasing Food Sovereignty In Bellingham, Washington, Matia Jones

WWU Graduate School Collection

This research examines how three organizations in Whatcom County, Washington – the Whatcom Food Network working at the county level, the Birchwood Food Security Solutions Working Group working at a neighborhood level, and the Western Washington University Food Security Working Group working at an institutional level – address food insecurity and promote food sovereignty in the metropolitan setting of Bellingham, WA. I frame food security and food sovereignty as social determinants of health or upstream medicine. Utilizing Participant Action Research and ethnographic methods, I explore this question by following three themes. First, I examine the composition and intergroup work process …

Local Food Policy & Consumer Food Cooperatives: Evolutionary Case Studies, Afton Hupper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Darwin’s theory of natural selection has played a central role in the development of the biological sciences, but evolution can also explain change in human culture. Institutions, mechanisms that govern behavior and social order, are important subjects of cultural evolution. Institutions can help stabilize cooperation, defined as behavior that benefits others, often at a personal cost. Cooperation is important for solving social dilemmas, scenarios in which the interests of the individual conflict with those of the group. A number of mechanisms by which institutions evolve to support cooperation have been identified, yet theoretical models of institutional change have rarely been …

Water And Life. A Cross-Sectional Study On Determinants Of Beverage Consumption And Water Access In One Tribal Community, Christina White

All Master's Theses

Increasingly, poor diet has been shown to be one of the most crucial factors associated with cause of death, even more critical than smoking. Research in the past two decades has consistently linked increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to the obesity epidemic contributing to a public health crisis all over the United States. Native Americans, among other minority groups, suffer obesity disproportionately from the rest of the US population, yet they continually fail to be included in research on the subject. Traditional research methods, sparse care coverage on reservations, consolidation of unique tribes into one classification, and failure to …

Agribusiness, Food Insecurity, And Chronic Diet-Related Ailments In Worcester, Ma: Toward A Nuanced Narrative, Adam Wriggins

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The following research paper begins with an acknowledgement of the global food crisis and, more specifically, the agribusiness model of food production and distribution in the United States. It then zeroes in on the fundamental issues with many of the United States food movements. It then outlines a narrative with the frame that food security is a human right by elucidating concepts of food justice and food sovereignty. Once this foundation has been laid, the paper examines chronic food-related ailments (diabetes and coronary heart disease) in Worcester, Massachusetts, and how these ailments are related to racial/ethnic minorities (Black and Hispanic/Latino …

Banking For The Future: An Ethnographic Study On The Local Food Bank, Its Role On Food Justice, And Patron Perception, Edward Fernandez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Food banks are antithetical to the food justice movement because they usually rely on government commodity surplus to alleviate need and promote notions of dependence through the charity model. This research examines Food for People, the only food bank in Humboldt County, within the context of local food security and patron perception using ethnographic observation, surveys, literature review, and interviews to generate data that would allow the food bank to fulfill its mission of ending hunger. Through ethnographic approaches, this thesis focuses on food security, what affects perception and actual food security in the context of food justice and food …

Atole De Maíz Azul: Building Climate-Change Resilience With Local Knowledge/Food Sovereignty In Northern New Mexico, Katherine C.R. Dixon

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The impacts of climate change in Northern New Mexico will cause a variation in seasonal precipitation and increased drought conditions. Northern New Mexico is home to numerous indigenous and rural-agricultural communities who rely on these water resources for subsistence and cultural practices. They are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

This paper investigates the impacts of climate change to Northern New Mexico. It examines the role of participatory methods and local knowledge in building community resilience. This paper is informed primarily through secondary research, and also draws upon a series of personalized interviews from Northern New …

Grassroots Diplomacy And Vernacular Law: The Discourse Of Food Sovereignty In Maine, John Welton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine, a coalition of small-scale farmers, consumers, and citizens building an alternative food system based on a distributed form of production, processing, selling, purchasing, and consumption. This distribution occurs at the municipal level through the enactment of ordinances. Using critical-rhetorical field methods, I argue that the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine develops a ‘constitutive’ rhetoric that composes rural society through affective relationships. Advocates engage the industrial food system to both expose its systemic bias against small-scale farming and construct their own discourse of belonging. Based upon agrarian values such as …

As Good As Niu: Food Sovereignty In Samoa, Emily Gove

Honors Theses

Samoa’s history as an island nation, with its cultural heritage of migratory peoples, followed by settler colonialism and missionaries, has resulted in its uniquely amalgamated food system. Cuisine varies from traditional crops and recipes to imported canned goods, although dependence on the latter has led to wide-ranging health problems. A way to confront these problems is through reclaiming local cuisine, renewing its popularity and promoting the concept of food sovereignty. Through fieldwork based on surveys, interviews, and participant observation in Apia, complemented with a study of activist Robert Oliver’s new cookbooks on Pacific cuisine, this project examines current themes …

Subsistence Under The Canopy: Agroecology, Livelihoods And Food Sovereignty Among Coffee Communities In Chiapas, Mexico, Margarita Fernandez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

One of the most pressing challenges facing the world today is how to sustainably feed a growing population while conserving the ecosystem services we depend on. Coffee landscapes are an important site for research on agrifood systems because they reflect global-scale dynamics surrounding conservation and livelihood development. Within them, we find both what is broken in our global agrifood system, as well as the grassroots struggles that strive to change the system by building socio-ecologically resilient, sustainable livelihoods. Research shows that smallholder shade coffee farmers steward high biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. At the same time, studies in the …

Mcdonald's Or Mesquite: Struggles On The Salt River Pima Reservation, Stefani Kim

Capstones

The Salt River Pima Indians, prior to colonization, had a strong tradition of harvesting and food sovereignity. As the tribe adapted to a more Westernized diet which consisted mainly of processed food rations, the rate of diabetes began to skyrocket on the reservation and, at one point, the tribe had one of the highest per capita diabetes rates in the world. This year, the tribe's cultural resources department will resurrect a 16-year-old community garden program originally funded by a USDA/Habitat for Humanity grant as a way to help combat health problems related to a poor diet such as diabetes and …

Land Grabs And Implications On Food Sovereignty And Social Justice In Senegal, Joanna Lafrancesca

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the case study of Senegal to examine the implications of large- scale land acquisitions on the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. I investigate the diverse perspectives of market enthusiasts, human rights organizations, peasants, the state, and international financial organizations on large-scale land acquisitions. Based on primary research, I argue that the state of Senegal plays an active role in permitting “land grabs” and that they pose a threat to food sovereignty among Senegalese host communities. Lastly, I argue there needs to be a broader understanding of long-term consequences and risks to insure social justice in areas affected …