Abstract
The Jewish Farmer Network (JFN) is a North American grassroots organization that mobilizes Jewish agricultural wisdom to build a more just and regenerative food system for all. This paper presents methodological findings and reflections from the initial stages of a participatory action research (PAR) collaboration led by the authors and JFN organizers centered on Cultivating Culture, JFN’s inaugural conference in February 2020. For this early iterative phase, we used a PAR approach to guide event ethnography to both facilitate and understand collective movement building and action. This work included pre-conference collaborative research design, a participatory reflection and action workshop with roughly 90 participants, evaluative surveys, short ethnographic interviews, and ongoing post-conference analysis with researchers and movement organizers. While this data was first analyzed and organized for JFN’s use, we present findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of foregrounding event ethnography within a PAR research design at an early stage of movement formation, especially how elements of event ethnography can address some of the limitations of using PAR with a nascent network of farmers. Our work revealed themes in the movement of Jewish farming: the politics of identity in movement building, the tensions around (de)politicization, and the production of Jewish agroecological knowledge. We reflect on the utility of using PAR to frame scholar-activism and propose future inquires for Jewish agrarianism.
Highlights
The Jewish Farmer Network (JFN) is a grassroots organization that was founded in 2017 and has since connected with over 2,000 farmers
Uative surveys, short ethnographic interviews, and ongoing post-conference analysis with researchers and movement organizers. While this data was first analyzed and organized for JFN’s use, we present findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of foregrounding event ethnography within a participatory action research (PAR) research design at an early stage of movement formation, especially how elements of event ethnography can address some of the limitations of using PAR with a nascent network of farmers
We summarize the findings from the participatory workshop, describing how we used event ethnography to inform the workshop
Summary
The Jewish Farmer Network (JFN) is a grassroots organization that was founded in 2017 and has since connected with over 2,000 farmers. In February 2020, JFN hosted Cultivating Culture, a four-day conference of Jewish farmers at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland. This event gathered over 160 people primarily from North America, along with Europe and Israel, in order to build community, share Jewish farming knowledge, and celebrate shabbat (weekly day of rest). This was the first large gathering of Jewish farmers in North America in recent memory, filling a shared need for individuals connected to both Jewish and farming spaces. The conference marks the beginning of a still-ongoing participatory action research (PAR) process, the first year of which we explore in this paper
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More From: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
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