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52. The intersection of food justice and religious values in secular spaces: insights from a nonprofit urban farm in Columbus, Ohio
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ryan-Simkins, Kelsey (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-01-08
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12056
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Notes:
- 15 pages, via Online journal, Critical food scholars have argued that activists’ political ideologies and environmental values are important influences on their food justice projects. However, this body of work has given little attention to religion and spirituality even though religious studies scholars maintain that religious values affect environmental and social action. Bringing together these perspectives considers the way religious values and meaning making intersect with actions toward food justice outside of traditionally religious spaces. This paper draws on qualitative research, including a dozen interviews and 11 months of participant observation, at Franklinton Farms, a nonprofit urban farm in Columbus, Ohio. I demonstrate that Franklinton Farms team members reference diverse religious values and practices when explaining the meaning and significance of their farming. In addition, I argue that they renegotiate their religious values in light of the injustices they see in the food system. By examining religion and spirituality within a secular food space, this paper sheds light on an underexplored influence on whether and how alternative food spaces realize food justice.
53. To free ourselves we must free ourselves
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Penniman, Leah (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- United States: Springer Nature
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11871
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 37(3) : 521-522
- Notes:
- 2 pages, We tossed our soiled shovels into the back of the pickup truck and took one last satisfied look at the backyard garden we built for Ronya Jackson and her seven children in Troy, NY. The siblings were excitedly tucking peas and spinach into the fresh earth as we headed home to nearby Soul Fire Farm to tend the crops that would be distributed to neighbors in need. Our sacred mission is to end racism and injustice in the food system, which we do by getting land, gardens, train-ing, and fresh food to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), including refugees and immigrants, survivors of mass incarceration, and others impacted by state violence.As Mama Fannie Lou Hamer said, “When you have 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, no one can push you around or tell you what to say or do.” Before, during, and after the outbreak, food apartheid dis-proportionately impacts (BIPOC) communities who also face higher vulnerability to COVID-19 due to factors like shared housing, lack of access to health care, environmental racism, job layoffs, immigration status, employment in the wage economy without worker protections, and more. This pandemic is exacerbating existing challenges and lays bare the cracks in the system that prevent many of us from having anything canned up for this metaphorical winter. Our society is called to account. Is now finally the time when we will catalyze the 5 major shifts needed to bring about a just and sustainable food system?
54. To the market and back? A study of the interplay between public policy and market-driven initiatives to improve farm animal welfare in the Danish pork sector
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Esbjerg, Lars (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-02-04
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12058
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Notes:
- 19 pages, via Online journal, This article discusses the interplay of public policy and market-driven initiatives to improve farm animal welfare (FAW). Over the last couple of decades, the notion of ‘market-driven animal welfare’ has become popular, but can the market deliver the FAW that consumers and politicians expect? Using the Danish pork sector as the empirical setting, this article studies efforts to improve private FAW standards following changes to general regulations. The analysis shows that ethical misgivings regarding the adequacy of current and prospective FAW standards are tempered by the economic considerations that guide the practices of some actors. The study also shows that efforts to improve FAW standards are contingent on collaboration and coordination across globalised markets among actors with divergent interests. The findings have important implications for market practices and public policy in relation to FAW.
55. Towards a dialogue of sustainable agriculture and end-times theology in the United States: insights from the historical ecology of nineteenth century millennial communes
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Fisher, Chelsea (author) and Department of Anthropology, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, USA
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-07-09
- Published:
- Springer Netherlands
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 151 Document Number: D10126
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 35(4) : 791–807
- Notes:
- 17 pages., Print ISSN: 0889-048X Online ISSN: 1572-8366, Via online journal., Almost one-third of all U.S. Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in the next 40 years, thereby signaling the end of the world. The prevalence of this end-times theology has meant that sustainability initiatives are often met with indifference, resistance, or even hostility from a significant portion of the American population. One of the ways that the scientific community can respond to this is by making scientific discourse, particularly as related to sustainability, more palatable to end-times believers. In this paper, I apply a historical–ecological framework, which emphasizes the interdisciplinary study of landscapes to understand long-term human–environment interactions, to three millennial religious groups that formed communes in nineteenth century America. The Shakers, Inspirationalists, and Mormons all blended deep beliefs in end-times theology with agricultural practices that were arguably more sustainable than those in use in the mainstream, and their ability to reconcile eschatology with sustainability provides us with potential lessons. By examining the history, doctrines, and agroecology of these nineteenth century communes, I propose communication strategies based in autonomy, institutional support, multigenerational narratives, and anthropocentricism as potential pathways for a more productive dialogue between advocates of sustainability initiatives and end-times believers in the modern United States.
56. Unlikely Allies against factory farms: animals rights advocates and environmentalists
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Holt, David M. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- International
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 163 Document Number: C26941
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- DOI: 10.1007/s10460-008-9122-4
57. Using the ‘good farmer’ concept to explore agricultural attitudes to the provision of public goods. A case study of participants in an English agri-environment scheme
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Cusworth, George (author) and Dodsworth, Jennifer (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-05-11
- Published:
- England: Springer Nature
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12809
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Online
- Notes:
- 11pgs, Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, access to green spaces, healthy rural environment, flood resilience, reduced greenhouse gas emissions). Whilst the reasons behind the changes are well documented, understanding how these shifts are being experienced by the managers expected to deliver on these new expectations is less well understood. Bourdieu’s social theory and the good farmer concept are used to attend to this blind spot, and to provide timely insight as the country progresses along its public goods subsidy transition. Evidence from 65 interviews with 40 different interviewees (25 of whom gave a repeat interview) show a general willingness towards the transition to a public goods model of subsidisation. The optimisation and efficiency that has historically characterised the productivist identity is colouring the way managers are approaching the delivery of public goods. Ideas of land sparing and land sharing (and the farming preference for the former over the latter) are used to help understand these new social and attitudinal realities.
58. When farmers are pulled in too many directions: comparing institutional drivers of food safety and environmental sustainability in California agriculture
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Bauer, Patrick (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- United States: Springer Publishing
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 185 Document Number: D11896
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 37
- Notes:
- 20 Pages, Springer Online, Aspirations to farm ‘better’ may fall short in practice due to constraints outside of farmers’ control. Yet farmers face proliferating pressures to adopt practices that align with various societal visions of better agriculture. What happens when the accumulation of external pressures overwhelms farm management capacity? Or, worse, when different visions of better agriculture pull farmers toward conflicting management paradigms? This article addresses these questions by comparing the institutional manifestations of two distinct societal obligations placed on California fruit and vegetable farmers: to practice sustainable agriculture and to ensure food safety. Drawing on the concept of constrained choice, I define and utilize a framework for comparison comprising five types of institutions that shape farm management decisions: rules and standards, market and supply chain forces, legal liability, social networks and norms, and scientific knowledge and available technologies. Several insights emerge. One, farmers are expected to meet multiple societal obligations concurrently; when facing a “right-versus-right” choice, farmers are likely to favor the more feasible course within structural constraints. Second, many institutions are designed to pursue narrow or siloed objectives; policy interventions that aim to shift farming practice should thus anticipate and address potential conflicts among institutions with diverging aspirations. Third, farms operating at different scales may face distinct institutional drivers in some cases, but not others, due to differential preferences for universal versus place-specific policies. These insights suggest that policy interventions should engage not just farmers, but also the intersecting institutions that drive or constrain their farm management choices. As my framework demonstrates, complementing the concept of constrained choice with insights from institutional theory can more precisely reveal the dimensions and mechanisms that bound farmer agency and shape farm management paradigms. Improved understanding of these structures, I suggest, may lead to novel opportunities to transform agriculture through institutional designs that empower, rather than constrain, farmer choice.
59. Which communication channels shape normative perceptions about buying local food? An application of social exposure
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Witzling, Laura (author), Shaw, Bret (author), and Trechter, David (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-02-22
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10273
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 36(3): 443–454
- Notes:
- 12 pages., via online journal, We examined how information from multiple communication channels can inform social norms about local food purchasing. The concept of social exposure was used as a guide. Social exposure articulates how information in social, symbolic, and physical environments contributes to normative perceptions. Data was collected from a sample in Wisconsin. Results indicated that information from communication channels representing symbolic, social, and physical environments all contributed to normative perceptions. We also found that for individuals who frequent farmers’ markets, information from some communication channels was relatively less strongly associated with injunctive norms. It may be that when first-hand, experiential information is available to inform norms, individuals rely less on information available through other communication channels. Future work might further explore how farmers’ markets foster information sharing in communities, as such information may contribute to normative perceptions.
60. book review: patricia hill collins: intersectionality as critical social theory
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Whitley, Hannah T. (author)
- Format:
- Book review
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09
- Published:
- United States: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12254
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 37, Iss. 3
- Notes:
- 2 pages, Moving beyond single-issue organizing, advocacy, and inquiry, intersectionality has become widely popular in academic and activist circles. Despite intersectional scholar/activists' best attempts to separate problems on the basis of factors like race, gender, sexuality, or class, Patricia Hill Collins cautions that "Intersectionality is one of those fields in which so many people like the idea of intersectionality itself and therefore think they understand the field as well" (4). Collins reasons that for intersectionality to fully realize its power, its practitioners must critically reflect on its assumptions, epistemologies, and methods. Placing intersectionality in dialogue with several theoretical traditions, Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory offers a set of analytical tools for those wishing to develop intersectionality's capability to theorize social inequality in ways that would facilitate social change. "Without sustained self-reflection," Collins writes, "intersectionality will be unable to help anyone grapple with social change, including change within its own praxis" (6). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory introduces and develops Collins' core concepts and guiding principles that demonstrate what it will take to develop intersectionality as a critical social theory.