AFHVS 2021 Presidential Address: critical praxis and the social imaginary for food systems transformation.

Abstract

In this 2021 AFHVS Presidential Address, Kim Niewolny provides a brief foray into the onto-epistemic framing of critical praxis for sustainable food systems transformation. Niewolny proposes we engage in the creative entanglement of critical praxis and the social imaginary to “unthink” the orthodoxies that govern our ideas of the possible. She offers several possibilities as pathways toward a food system that embodies health equity, ecological justice, land sovereignty, and human rights, including: (1) agroecological research and movement building; (2) food, farm, and health policy; (3) food and farm system worker protections as public health and human rights concerns; (4) intersectional food justice scholarship and curriculum; (5) narrative-led, community-based, and action-oriented methodologies as multi-dimensional inquiry; (6) and multi-sector and multi-racial coalitions as dynamic networks that challenge linear, neoliberal, and technical-rational practices. Niewolny concludes with a call for radical hope as a principle for critical food systems praxis.