Abstract
This commentary argues for a need to go "beyond food" in research, writing, and activism on the food system. Noting a tendency within both academic and activist discourse around food to focus on "the food itself," rather than on broader structures of inequality and disinvestment, I argue that more research is needed that focuses explicitly on the ways in which institutional structures and systems (including nonprofits, schools, housing, as well as the food system) can exacerbate broad injustices, including limited food access. I draw on research experience in post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, USA, as well as commentary from eminent food systems scholars, to advocate for new research trajectories that utilize food as a lens for contesting broader structures of injustice, rather than advocating for more and better food as an end in itself.
Highlights
At the 2013 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a panel of eminent food systems scholars gathered in a crowded room in a Los Angeles conference center to debate whether it is time to move “beyond food” in our research and activism
Julie Guthman (2008) and Rachel Slocum (2007) are notable exceptions. Both authors argue that “the food itself”— the quantity and quality of food available in lowincome communities of color—tends to galvanize and animate white people; for people residing in those communities, “the paucity of quality food in their communities is seen as evidence of [a] lack of [political and economic] power” (Block, Chávez, Allen, & Ramirez, 2011). This discrepancy in identifying the problem reflects, in many ways, the difficulty that inheres in seeking solutions, and may begin to explain why food justice projects aiming to promote social justice, or, to increase healthy food access for people of color, so often fail to address the underlying systems and structures that helped create the unjust food landscape that characterizes American cities
Work that has focused on food and agriculture as means and ends in themselves should be celebrated for the substantive changes it has made possible, and for broadening and deepening critical interest in and engagement with both dominant and alternative food systems
Summary
At the 2013 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a panel of eminent food systems scholars gathered in a crowded room in a Los Angeles conference center to debate whether it is time to move “beyond food” in our research and activism. The panel, organized by Lindsay Naylor and consisting of food scholars Jessica Hayes-Conroy, Aaron Bobrow-Strain,
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