Home Food Production and Its Contribution
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DIY FOOD: HOME FOOD PRODUCTION AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO FOOD JUSTICE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNVIERSITY DEPARTMENT OF MULTICULTURAL WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE BY AUDREY LUNDAHL, B.A., M.A. DENTON, TEXAS MAY 2017 DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to food justice advocates, food workers, plants, animals, and the entire environment. May we find a way to heal the splits caused by the industrial food system. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my chair, Dr. Agatha Beins, for deeply caring about the work of her students, offering her time and energy to help me complete this project, and always pushing me to think deeper about this project. Thank you to Dr. AnaLouise Keating for her “behind-the-scenes” feedback with the work itself and navigating the process. Thank you to Dr. Mark Kessler for always being ready with words of encouragement and for getting this project started in the methodologies course. Also thank you to my partner, my copyeditor, for giving up your time to help me complete this dissertation and for moving to Denton and supporting me in many more ways. iv ABSTRACT AUDREY LUNDAHL DIY FOOD: HOME FOOD PRODUCTION AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO FOOD JUSTICE MAY 2016 My dissertation, “DIY Food: Home Food Production and Its Contribution to Food Justice,” explores home food production as a means to raising food consciousness. Using textual analysis, I investigated the blogs of home food producers. Ecowomanist/new materialist theories frame my evaluation of home food production’s overall contribution to food justice movements. I argue that producing food at home is a type of spiritual activism, in which the gardeners develop a food consciousness that allows them to consider daily the spiritual interconnections between communities around the world that include the environment. My work contributes to the field of Women’s Studies through the spiritualization of food practices, using a spiritual activist lens influenced by womanist theory. Although food injustice has been a major concern for social justice scholarship, my work pushes the definition of food justice activism by theorizing a spiritualized food practice. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page COPYRIGHT ......................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ........................................................................................................ iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ vi Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 Why Blogs? ...................................................................................... 4 Which Blogs? .................................................................................. 7 Meet the Bloggers ...................................................................... 8 Methodology .................................................................................. 11 Scholarly and Everyday Conversations ........................................... 15 Food Justice ............................................................................ 16 Garden Studies ........................................................................ 27 Ecowomanist New Materialism ............................................... 31 Spiritual Activism ................................................................... 40 Overview ........................................................................................ 45 II. BUILDING FOOD CONSCIOUSNESS ............................................... 49 Mindful Everyday Practices .............................................................. 58 Gratitude........................................................................................... 65 Authenticity ...................................................................................... 74 Self-Care and Healing ....................................................................... 82 A Spiritual Pursuit ............................................................................ 90 Conclusion........................................................................................ 99 III. BUILDING COMMUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS ................................. 101 Distance ......................................................................................... 102 Local Food .................................................................................... 107 Access ........................................................................................... 110 vi Access Alternatives ................................................................ 116 Community Gardening ........................................................... 121 Knowledge .................................................................................... 126 Whiteness .............................................................................. 132 Blogging as Community Building .................................................. 137 Virtual Communities ............................................................. 147 IV. HISTORICIZING FOOD .................................................................... 153 Agential Food ............................................................................... 154 Industrial Food ....................................................................... 161 Knowing Food ............................................................................... 168 Human Entanglements ................................................................... 172 Food on its Own ............................................................................ 174 Making Space ................................................................................ 176 Naturalness .................................................................................... 178 Preservation ................................................................................... 182 Food Waste .................................................................................... 186 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 189 V. SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH RECIPROCITY .............................. 192 Reciprocity ................................................................................... 193 Nurturance .................................................................................... 203 Intervention .................................................................................. 216 Letting Go .................................................................................... 225 VI. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 237 WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................... 246 vii INTRODUCTION Eating a bowl of posole made from locally grown corn, land, and chili is equal to going to the state legislature to demand fair water rights. This is because when one either grows one’s own ingredients for the posole or barters or purchases the foods from someone who did, one is supporting a resilient process aimed at sovereignty – Enrique Salmón, Eating the Landscape The seed of this dissertation was an actual seed, or a packet of seeds to be more specific. While I was checking out at a local natural grocery store a few years ago, the cashier handed me a complimentary packet of carrot seeds with the words “Help Grow No GMO! Spreading the Word One Seed at a Time” printed on the front. Although food justice was something I already tried to consider through my daily food choices, this packet of seeds made me consider some of the more material, more active, more radical, more creative, and potentially more effective ways that food justice activists work to help people make just food choices and ensure just food options. To begin such consideration, I wanted to explore the implications of my daily food more closely. I realized I already had a relationship with food justice from embracing vegetarianism at a young age. At that time in my life, I began to think about the source of my food through my personal love for and relationship with non-animals. I further realized, however, from learning about GMO food and locavorism, that food justice was more complicated than not eating animals, and my research will show just 1 how complicated making ethical decisions about food can be. As I interrogated my own decisions, the carrot seed packet inspired me to take on my own gardening practice; I planted tomatoes, spinach, and green beans in a large container and a raised garden bed, and I started a compost pile at the side of my home. As I gardened, I witnessed the energy of growing plants and was humbled by the life force of tiny sprouts. And later, I was disappointed and confronted with my own feelings regarding loss of control when a severe rainstorm snapped the stem of a tomato plant and drowned spinach sprouts. I experienced a tiny triumph in the form of a handful of green beans that I harvested from a very sparse plant. I was also able to reflect on my own consumption practices as I watched my compost pile fill up with food scraps and other compostable