Potential Genres for Unit 3

1) Email

Emails are essential within the activist community and very often used to plan events, meetings, and actions and to connect with other groups or individuals. Due to the nature of the work and goals of my field, most of the genres target a public audience, but emails are strictly professional because they are used within the inner workings of the professionals in these activist groups. I am selecting email as a potential genre not because it necessarily excites me, but my options are limited and this would be a method to get my information across.

2) Press Release

Press releases are used by my field to communicate important information to the media. The dual audience that I discussed in unit 1 of both media professionals and the general public might make this genre problematic for the assignment. I selected this genre because it might be interesting to do an “announcement” of my project to the media. A press release could help me effectively organize my information.

3) Workshop

Activists frequently go to conferences held by various organizations or coalitions. These events include workshops or trainings in different topics for professionals to connect and learn new organizing skills (ranging from trainings in coalition building and creative action planning to workshops on worker-owned cooperatives and institutional racism). For this genre, I could design my own workshop based on my project and write a script for it. My information would fit well into a genre like this because I would be able to then create a discussion with professionals in my field.

Central American Travels (lots of photos)

The backpacker’s life is a beautiful one! I recently backpacked through Central America, spending 5 months traveling through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico.Today I posted an album (here) of some photos from my travels and it’s making me nostalgic for the open road!As I reflect on the experiences I had, I become more and more grateful that I was able to explore such an incredible part of the world. It was truly a transformational experience.The people of Central America are so hospitable and kind, I once was lost in Guatemala City and a woman spent an hour and half driving me around the city to find my destination and refused any money, simply saying “amiga,” giving me a hug, and driving away.The Spanish language is amazing, I enjoyed constantly practicing speaking and learning new words, expanding my knowledge every day.The hostel culture is so fun, every day I hung out with travelers from all over the world (soooo many stories).And of course the nature! Beautiful jungles, pristine beaches, mountains, Mayan ruins, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, volcanoes, everything. Central America is truly a magical place.Every day I would look around at the people I was with and the places I was in and think to myself that there was nowhere else I would rather be. Waking up with no idea what the day will hold is so exciting, I loved having total freedom to flow wherever I wanted!I now have stories for a lifetime and I’m only getting started on my world adventures. I can’t wait to see what my next trip will hold!

Food Literacy Team

The Food Project is an amazing organization that works in low income communities of color such as Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan to increase access to fresh, local food. They have a 40 acre urban farm that is used for food production as well as youth education, farm-to-family programs that offer deeply discounted produce to low income families, farmer’s markets that accept SNAP/EBT benefits as payment, and build-a-garden programs that offer training and resources for community members to build their own raised bed gardens. For my Unit 2 proposal, I planned to do a case study of The Food Project as well as another food justice organization in Boston. I volunteered with The Food Project in Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 as a member of their Food Literacy Team. Twice a week I went to a low income pre-school in Dorchester to teach children ages 3-5 about vegetables and the “seed to fork” concept. I had a different weekly curriculum involving books, games, activities, and “tastings” of various veggies. Each class also got to plant their own radish seeds and watch them grow. The main goal of the Food Literacy Team is to teach very young children about where their food comes from and the healthiness of fresh fruits and vegetables. Due to barriers of access to fresh produce, many families are unable to teach their children these concepts. Through my engagement with the children I learned the importance of this type of education (most evidenced by when I asked for an example of a vegetable and got “pizza” and “hamburgers” among the answers). I also learned how to get 3-5 year olds excited (which involves lots of energy), but it was overall a very rewarding experience to get to work with an organization that bringing food justice to the neighborhoods of Boston.

Interesting Discourse on Food Justice and Neoliberalism

Through my research on the food justice movement, particularly in the opportunities for transformative change through embracing a food sovereignty framework, I’ve found an interesting relationship between various scholars in the field. The discourse centers around the current food movement’s involvement in neoliberal capitalism. While all scholars in my bibliography argue (or at least hint at) the negative effects of neoliberalism, revealing their radical political stances (which is common in the activist community and scholarship surrounding it), they differ in how they approach the issue. One source discusses urban food access issues through examples from Chicago, one introduces the new concept of Rights Based Food Systems based on human rights appeals, another discusses the relationship between local food movements and greater democratization and civic engagement. Each of these argue for a food sovereignty framework through their own case studies and examples, but each also offer a critique of current practices within the food justice movement, which often rely on market-based approaches to solve problems of racial inequality. By using market exchange as a tool, these methods tend to exclude those most oppressed within the community and also reinforce ideals of neoliberalism that dictate market strategies to solve problems over state responsibility. The demands of a food sovereignty approach include a radical transformation of the current state and economic structures.This is something I had never thought of before, and it is deeply informing my perspective on the potentialities and challenges of the food justice movement. I am also greatly inspired to read these scholarly articles that argue for an analysis that names capitalism as the culprit for most global injustices because that is a view I have held myself for many years now. It is easy to get interested in this topic of food sovereignty when the radical ideals of the scholarship reflect my own. 

Summary of Unit 2

Research questions: How does a food sovereignty framework within local food movements reduce racial inequalities within the food system and build a stronger food movement for systemic change? What are the challenges or alternatives to this approach? 

Although the alternative food movement in the United States is gaining momentum, the movement is largely dominated by affluent white people able to access and afford local, fair, sustainable food, which excludes low income communities of color from participating in and benefiting from the movement. The food justice movement aims to change this narrative by focusing on the social and economic barriers to accessing fresh, sustainable food within the context of dismantling institutional racism and empowering vulnerable communities. The notion of food sovereignty, or community control of the production and distribution of food, is an approach advocated by many scholars and activists as a method for uplifting communities most impacted by the unjust food system. Using food sovereignty as a framework for bringing justice to the food system has the potential, then, to radically transform the system.

 

 

Building a Palapa

Teak frame before the thatched roofing.

Palapa structures, many in the states might refer to them as something silly like a “tiki hut,” are very common throughout the world, especially in Central America. Palapas (a Spanish word meaning “pulpous leaf”) are open dwellings with a thatched roof made from dried leaves. I helped build one as a side project at VerdEnergia on my coop, but only worked on the wood frame and gathered the materials. For the frame, we used local sustainably harvested raw teak. First we had to strip off all the bark, which involved pounding a log with a hammer in order to loosen the bark, then peeling it off in large strips. Once the bark was stripped, we treated the logs and began building the frame. Because there were many other building projects going on at the same time, our amazing Costa Rican farm staff, Carlos, Eduardo, and Juan Carlos took care of the frame.

Juan Carlos weaving the leaves for the roof

In order to gather the leaves for the roof, one of the workers went ahead and chopped the leaves from an area of jungle near a neighbor’s farm. Our job as volunteers was to hike a few miles down a river to retrieve the bundles of leaves and bring them back to the farm. This involved carrying a very large, heavy, itchy, bug-infested bundle of giant leaves on our shoulders up a rocky river…which was fun. I left the farm before it was completed but recently saw a picture and am very excited about the new space! It is overlooking a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and is situated perfectly to watch the sunrise. Soon hammocks will go in and it will be the perfect place to sleep extra guests or just hang out! It’s really exciting what you can build out of natural materials all around, and once you begin to understand the abundance provided by the earth it is easy to put that to use with a bit of hard work.

Almost there!

 

I <3 Farmer's Markets

I was randomly scrolling through my photos on my phone today and found this picture I took of my kitchen counter after going to a farmer’s market this summer in Birmingham, Alabama (where I’m from). My mom and I spent a lovely Saturday morning buying vegetables and jams from an assortment of local family farms, listening to live bluegrass music, and browsing stands of handmade jewelry, flowers, and other items. There were tons of people there with their children, dogs, friends, and grandparents. Let me just informally say I LOVE farmer’s markets. It is such a beautiful thing to be able to connect with the people that grow our food and buy nutrient-dense produce that is freshly picked from the earth. The local food movement not only helps the environment by reducing fossil fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and plastic, but it also grows community between neighbors and farmers. Cultivating community is so important in building grassroots movements for sustainable change, so this aspect of farmer’s markets is one of the most exciting! Not to mention the unmatched nutritional value of fresh off the farm fruits and vegetables. With farmer’s markets becoming more widely popular by the year, this is an amazing time to be involved in the food justice movement!

Looking Through My Texts

For my Unit 1 assignment, I wrote about the genres of discourse within the field of environmental activism and advocacy. The word image created by Voyant of my most used words actually paints an accurate picture of my main ideas within the paper. The top 10 include environmental, scholarly, field, press, food, example, movement, justice, media, and important. Although it is a little awkward how few times I used the word ‘genre’ within an assignment about genres, my often use of key words in my field framed my discussion on forms of discourse and communication.

This got me thinking about some of my other assignments within my field and I got curious to see if the key words are similar across all of my work. In my longest (and favorite) paper entitled “Building the Road by Walking: How Solidarity Economy Practices are Strengthening the Environmental Movement and Building Capacity for Transformative Social Change,” the top 10 words I used were community, food, environmental, economy, solidarity, movement, cooperatives, social, create, and grassroots. It’s amazing how this list is so representative of the themes present in my paper. Here is the word image for those interested.

For a paper in which I raged (in a scholarly way) against the destructive force of the capitalist system entitled “Capitalism: A System Against the Environment and the People,” my top 10 words were environmental, capitalist, corporate, crisis, economic, people, profits, resources, ecological, and exploitation. Again, putting together the key words from my paper illuminates important themes in my work. Here is the word image for this one.

Another paper I wrote about in Fall 2011 entitled “Transforming Elections: Democracy and Environmental Protection,” the top 10 words were environmental, government, corporate, campaign, elections, united, clean, candidates, change, and influence. The word picture as a whole has similar key words as my other papers as well. If a random person looked at any of these word lists, they would be able to get a sense of what I’m arguing for before reading even reading my paper.

I wrote each of these papers at different times in my college career (each paper was during a different semester and for a different class), yet they maintain similar themes. This is providing me with an interesting look at how my academic work has allowed me to hone in on my interests and develop a strong and informed perspective. This made me realize that I am actually in the process of creating a cohesive body of work, which is exciting!

Ground-breaking Fearless Act Today by 6 Female Greenpeace Activists

Today is an important day in the history of environmental direct action! 6 female Greenpeace activists scaled the largest skyscraper in Europe modeled after an ice shard in London in protest of Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the already-melting Arctic. Their 310 meter, 15 hour ascent was live-tweeted by Greenpeace and their hashtag, #iceclimb was trending worldwide. This extreme action points to the immense power of gaining significant media attention in the world today. By standing at the top of the skyscraper, these women were taking a stand to save the Arctic and their platform was heard around the world. In an interview weeks before the climb, activist Victoria said,

All I need to do is face down one building. But us, together as activists for the Arctic? We need to face down entire industries, governments, and a way of thinking that puts profit before the planet. 

Her statement brings together the scope of the movement. Brave activists scaling buildings is not enough to build a sustainable world. It takes many people around the globe working together to put an end to environmental destruction. The goal is to create a cohesive and inclusive worldwide grassroots movement for sustainability and the movement is well on its way! To defeat corporations, corrupt governments, and capitalistic greed, that’s what it’s going to take.

Feeling so much gratitude for the bravery of those women taking a such a risk to have their voices heard, their passion makes me optimistic about the future of this movement!

BREAKING NEWS: Northeastern Signs onto the Real Food Challenge Campus Commitment!!!

 

WOOOO! Exciting day! In the fall of 2012, I held the position of Food Justice Committee Chair within the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) on campus and decided to run a campaign with the Real Food Challenge (RFC). The organization works on college campuses to shift the university dining industry’s food sourcing practices into food that is community based, ecologically sound, fair for workers and farmers, and humane to animals. These four categories make up the Real Food Calculator, which is used to determine what percentage of “real food” your dining hall sources. The ultimate goal of RFC is to shift 20% of the university food sourcing industry to real food by 2020 (which equates to $1 billion within a $5 billion industry)! Campuses get involved by signing onto the Real Food Campus Commitment and agreeing to transparency about where their food is sourced as well as to procuring 20% real food by 2020.

Northeastern signing onto this commitment is a huge step in the right direction towards our university supporting fair and sustainable food. We, as students, have the right to know what is in the food served to us by Chartwells. Without our dollars, they would not even exist on this campus. We have SO much power to demand our university to take  a stand for social justice…we just need to realize it!! Earlier this year, PSA celebrated a long awaited victory when Northeastern agreed to cut its contract with Adidas due to their refusal to pay $1.8 in severance to workers in a closed Indonesian factory. After many dedicated student activists across the country fought and succeeded to win numerous contract cuts, the campaign, coordinated by United Students Against Sweatshops, was ultimately successful! Adidas agreed to pay the workers their legally owed pay after years of denial. This would not have happened if students in the U.S. did not stand in solidarity with oppressed garment workers abroad and cooperate amongst themselves to create a cohesive campaign.

This Real Food Challenge victory is yet another display of amazing student power! Students across the country are working on RFC campaigns, and our victory at Northeastern will have a ripple effect in Boston and beyond as the food movement builds momentum. Our victory came after an amazing core group of women (Allie, Sonia, Brooke, Catherine, Maya, Emma, Tricia, Steffi) worked tirelessly to build student support for more fair and sustainable food on campus. Almost 800 members of the NU community signed our petition urging Northeastern to sign onto the commitment and 27 student groups signed onto our Real Food Coalition! With a year of strategic organizing and passionate student activists, we won the campaign as announced today!! We truly have the power as university students to collectively bring immense change to the world and the recent Northeastern victories are an amazing demonstration of that power.