Connecting with food systems and social justice communities around the world
Summer Food and Social Justice Research and Learning in Europe
FJAR Lab Director Dr. Kristin Reynolds spent two months in Europe this summer working on several related initiatives. From May-June, she was an invited Fellow in the “The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity” project at The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. The project addressed power inequities in global and local food governance, identifying obstacles and offering multidisciplinary and systemic solutions. Dr. Reynolds is co-editor, with Project Chair José Luis Chicoma, of the final report which will be launched this October.
As a part of the collaborative process in the “Future of Food” project, Reynolds and Chicoma traveled to the Piedmont region in northern Italy for meetings with Slow Food, International, one of the leading global food and culinary organizations, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences. The food was delicious – and the meetings planted seeds for ongoing collaborations, including one of the Food Studies/FJAR Lab’s upcoming public events (see below)!
Finally, Dr. Reynolds participated in a two-week long training, Black Europe Summer School. The intensive course is held each summer in Amsterdam,The Netherlands and “explores the contemporary circumstances of the African Diaspora and other people of color in Europe.” The training was founded by Director Dr. Kwame Nimako, who co-leads the program with Dr. Camilla Hawthorne (University of California, Santa Cruz) and additional leading thinkers and cultural memory and arts practitioners.
Conference Presentations
Food Studies Part-Time Faculty and Alumna, and FJAR Lab member Tamarra Thomas traveled to Oregon this June to present at the annual joint conferences of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and the Association of the Study of Food and Society.
Thomas presented on her research “Sweet Child O’Mine: Exploring the Afterschool Eats Of Latchkey Kids of the 1980’s and 1990’s.” Thomas’s research focused on the ‘Food Cultures’ aspect of this years conference theme. Thomas looked at the lesser explored culture of the American latchkey kid. She studied what they were eating, what their food memories were, and food practices.
She also co-presented with FJAR Lab Director Kristin Reynolds on their project (with New School graduate students Cédric Gottfried and Constance Smith) “Racial Equity and the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production’s County Office and Granting Program.” Connecting to the conference’s second theme of ‘Social Justice’ this study looked at the USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production through a racial equity lens.
This conference is an important annual gathering in the field of food studies, and we are delighted to be able to participate each year!