Course Syllabus on Food Justice

COURSE SYLLABUS

Means of Food Production and Meanings of Food Consumption:
Mapping the Intersections of Anthropology/Ecology,
Action/Knowledge, Local/Global, and Security/Sustainability

DESCRIPTION OF COURSE CONTENT

This course is designed to explore the intersections of local and global processes towards community security and ecological sustainability. Food lives at the intersections of human cultures and ecological systems.  We will examine and deconstruct the relations of power which shape and control various communities' means of food production, distribution, and consumption, and we'll explore how deeply this affects political, economic, cultural, ecological, and social relations and evolution.

Through postcolonial, feminist, and poststructural frameworks, this course examines dynamics of race, class, gender, and national privilege within dominant agricultural practices which differently shape humans relations to food. By exploring subaltern food practices around the globe and participating in local processes growing and sharing nutritious and culturally relevant foods, students will explore ways in which to intervene upon the alienation, violences, and injustices experienced within dominant systems of agricultural production and consumption. In this course, rigorous engagement with deconstructive understandings of development, of the promises of democracy, and of the processes towards ecological justice blend with experiential educational practices to elucidate the intersections of anthropology and ecology, space and power, action and knowledge, responsibilities and possibilities.

SUMMARY OF EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE

Through activities, lectures, readings, and discussions, this course intends to empower and enable students to take back means of food production and meanings of food consumption.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES % of Class Time
Cognitive/Didactic (Lecture, Discussion) 30 + 20
Experiential (Group process, thinking, reflection) 20
Practical/Applied (Research, fieldwork, writing, case presentation) 30

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

Throughout the course, students are expected to participate within and carry out research on a chosen community movement surrounding issues of social justice linked to cultural and ecological sustainability. Students are required to turn in monthly reports summarizing methodological processes and critically analyzing urgent issues. The course culminates in a portfolio project and presentation outlining the students’ participatory action research. All monthly reading assignments will be discussed in small groups and in relation to the lectures.

COURSE SCHEDULE

January: History and Context
Introductions
Lecture and Discussion
This section explores histories of social relations surrounding food systems. How may an excavation of past agricultural practices and policies contribute to an understanding of humans’ present relations to food and land? What are the relations of power that exist within various forms of governance shaping the disparate conditions of access to nutritional food? What are the ways in which urban areas have become alienated from the means of production and dependent upon unsustainable forms of consumption? How do the legacies of colonialism, the effects of capitalism, and the processes of violence that exist within dominant food systems contribute to inequitable conditions of living within urban areas and across the Global South? What are the ways in which historical analyses attentive to dynamics of power enable a re-thinking of self-determination and ecological justice?
Readings:
- Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture.
- Marx, Karl. Das Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Vol. 1, Part VIII
- Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics
Activity:
Deconstructing conceptions of food and farming

February: Food Justice
Lecture and Discussion
This section intervenes upon the violences of dominant food systems through exploring the social realities and complexities of food justice movements.
Readings:
- Boucher, Douglas, ed. The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World.
- Shiva, Vandana. Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis.
- Wekerle, Gerda. Food Justice Movements: Policy, Planning, and Networks.
Activity:
Compost the Empire: Lessons on the Practices and Benefits of Composting

March: Reframing Development
Lecture and Discussion
This section critically explores the complexities of what is development through postcolonial, feminist, and poststructural frameworks. What are the social, cultural, ecological, and political impacts of dominant development practices? How can we critically look at practices in development as mediated through the dynamics of race, class, gender, power, and place? What are the ways in which narratives of ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’ legitimate realities of violence and disparity experienced through dominant development practices? How can we reframe notions of development which make visible the concerns of marginalized communities? What are the engagements of social movements and the efforts of disenfranchised communities which speak to the possibilities of micro and macro shifts toward participatory sustainable development?
Readings:
- Bodley, John. Victims of Progress, 5th edition.
- Kabeer, Naila. Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought.
- Illich, Ivan. Needs. In The Development Dictionary.
Activity:
Seeding: a life giving force that all genders can give, all nations should enable, and all ethnicities practice.

April: Methodology
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Shapiro, Richard. Power, Alliance, and the Problematics of Intervention.
- Chatterji, Angana and Richard Shapiro. Knowledge Making as Intervention: The Academy and Social Change. In A Collection on Environmental Justice and Human Rights.
- Fals-Borda, Orlando, and Mohammad Anisur Rahman. Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research.
Activity:
Fieldwork in students’ sites

May: Ecology
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Merchant, Carolyn. Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory, 2nd Edition.
- Outwater, Alice. Water: A Natural History.
- Gliessman, S.R. Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems.
- Foster, John Bellamy. Ecology Against Capitalism
Activity:
Fieldwork in students’ sites

June: Power/Violence
Lecture and Discussion
How are the contours of violence, the everyday, epical, epistemic, and performative violences, mediated by historical continuities and discontinuities? How has the institutionalization and normalization of violence legitimated certain statist forms of violence while rendering other forms as illegal/immoral? How can a critical reflection upon the role of states and the international community intervene upon systemic and everyday forms of violence and reframe understandings of human rights? How can a critical understanding of the process and discourse of violence reframe our understanding of food systems and enable new ways of thinking about food?
Readings:
- Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France, 1977-1978.
- Shiva, Vandana. Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology
and Politics.
- Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Philippe Bourgois. Introduction: Making Sense of Violence. In Violence in War and Peace: an Anthology.
- Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.
Activity:
Power Shuffle exercise and field analysis

July: Local/Global
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Shiva, Vandana. Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed.
- Altieri, Miguel A. Small Farms as a Planetary Ecological Asset: Five Key Reasons Why We Should Support the Revitalization of Small Farms in the Global South.
- Clay, J. World Agriculture and the Environment: a Commodity-by-Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices.
Activity:
Space and Power: Explicating the Complexities of the Field

August: Feminisms
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.
- UC Davis Small Farm Center. Outstanding in their Fields: California's Women Farmers.
- Bollinger, Holly. Women of the Harvest: Inspiring Stories of Women Farmers.
- Braidotti, Rosi with Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler, and Saskia Wieringa. Responses to the Crisis: Challenges and Contradictions within Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, and Ecofeminism. In Women, the Environment, and Sustainable Development.
Activity:
Transplanting and Food as Medicine

September: Postcolonial Understandings
Lecture and Discussion

Readings:
- La Duke, Winona. Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming.
- Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak.
- Cesaire, Aime. Discourse on Colonialism.
Activity:
Practices in Counter-Memory

October: Politicizing Food Practices/Social Movements
Lecture and Discussion
How to politicize relations to food
Readings:
- Slocum, Rachel. Anti-racist Practice and the Work of Community Food Organizations.
- Pollan, Michael. An Open Letter to the Farmer in Chief. New York Times Magazine, October 9.
- UN Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
- UN World Commission on Sustainable Development, 2007. www.un.org/esa/sustdev/
- Imhoff, Daniel. Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill
Activity:
Policy Brief

November: Permaculture
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual.
- Imhoff, Daniel. Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches.
Activity:
Water is Life

December: Cultural Notions of Food
Lecture and Discussion
Readings:
- Menzel, P. and F. D'Aluisio. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.
- Rumi, Mowlana Jalaluddin. Bowls of Food ghazal.
- Margolin, Malcolm. The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area.
Activity:
Class Presentations of Fieldwork, including Reflections on Self in Relation to the World, Archival Research, and Advocacy in Community

RELEVANT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Altieri, Miguel A.
2008 Small Farms as a Planetary Ecological Asset: Five Key Reasons Why We Should Support the Revitalization of Small Farms in the Global South. Food First Institute, May 9.

Berry, Wendell
1977 The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

Bodley, John H.
2008 Victims of Progress, 5th edition. New York: Altamira Press.

Bollinger, Holly
2007 Women of the Harvest: Inspiring Stories of Women Farmers. Voyagur Press

Boucher, Douglas H., ed.
1999 The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World. Oakland: Food First Books.

Braidotti, Rosi with Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler, and Saskia Wieringa
1994 Responses to the Crisis: Challenges and Contradictions within Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, and Ecofeminism. In Women, the Environment, and Sustainable Development. Rosi Braidotti, Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler, and Saskia Wieringa, eds. Pp. 149-168. New Jersey: Zed Books

Carson, Rachel
1962 Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Cesaire, Aime.
1955 Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Chatterji, Angana and Richard Shapiro
2006 Knowledge Making as Intervention: The Academy and Social Change. In A Collection on Environmental Justice and Human Rights. Bunyan Bryant, ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

Clay, J.
2003 World Agriculture and the Environment: a Commodity-by-Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices. Island Press.

Collins, Patricia Hill
2000 Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

Fals-Borda, Orlando, and Mohammad Anisur Rahman
1991 Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research. New York: The Apex Press.

Foster, John Bellamy
2002 Ecology Against Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Foucault, Michel
2007 Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France, 1977-1978. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gliessman, S.R.
2007Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems. CRC Press

Illich, Ivan
1995 Needs. In The Development Dictionary. Wolfgang Sachs, ed. Pp. 88-101. London: Zed Books.

Imhoff, Daniel
2007 Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill. UC Press.

Imhoff, Daniel
2005 Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches. Watershed Media

Kabeer, Naila
1994 Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London: Verso.

La Duke, Winona
2005 Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming. Cambridge: South End Press.

Margolin, Malcolm
1978 The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. Berkeley: Heyday Books.

Marx, Karl
1887 Das Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Vol. 1. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey and Co.

Menzel, P., and F. D'Aluisio
2005 Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Material World Books and Ten Speed Press.

Merchant, Carolyn
2008 Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory, 2nd Edition. Amherst: Humanity Books.

Mollison, Bill
1988 Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Tyalgum: Australia.

Nash, Roderick Frazier
1989 The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Outwater, Alice
1996 Water: A Natural History. New York: Basic Books.

Pollan, Michael
2008 An Open Letter to the Farmer in Chief. New York Times Magazine, October 9.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Philippe Bourgois.
2004 Introduction: Making Sense of Violence. In Violence in War and Peace: an Anthology. Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourois, eds. Pp. 1-31. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Shapiro, Richard
2000 Power, Alliance, and the Problematics of Intervention. Works in Progress presented at the SfAA, March.

Shiva, Vandana
1991 Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics. Penang: Third World Network.
2007 Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed. Cambridge: South End Press.
2008 Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis. Cambridge: South End Press.

Slocum, Rachel
2006 Anti-racist Practice and the Work of Community Food Organizations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty
1988 Can the Subaltern Speak. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg, eds. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Rumi, Mowlana Jalaluddin
1207-1273 Bowls of Food ghazal.

UC Davis Small Farm Center
2006 Outstanding in their Fields: California's Women Farmers

UN Declaration of Human Rights
1948 http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

UN World Commission on Sustainable Development
2007 Sustainable Development. Electronic document, http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/.

Wekerle, Gerda R.
2004 Food Justice Movements: Policy, Planning, and Networks. In Journal of Planning Education and Research 23(4).