An Intersectional Feminist Food Studies Praxis: Activism and Care in the COVID-19 Context (Poster 2)

• In Event: Redefining Care in a Global Pandemic: Problematizing Relational Models in Socio-Ecological Systems

Abstract

Objective/Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has, in unprecedented ways, laid bare global structural inequalities and injustices, including those involving food. As the introduction to a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Environmental Education poignantly highlights, the biological cause of the COVID-19 pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) is generally geographically uniform (setting aside genetic variants), yet the “geo-cultural/historical particularities are highly significant in the ways in which the pandemic affects specific localities; subsequently, also in the way local/regional politics target the problem” (Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, 2021). Although feminist frameworks have been applied to the study of food in a variety of disciplines (e.g., Avakian & Haber, 2005; Espinal et al., 2021; Mares, 2017; Parker et al., 2019; Moon, 2021; Trauger et al., 2010), we have much to learn in environmental education (EE), particularly with respect to activist approaches.

Theoretical Perspective: In this article, I draw on intersectional feminism (Collins, 1990; Crenshaw 1989, 1991) and theories of care to develop a nascent intersectional feminist food studies praxis for the field, with the hopes of animating important conversations about “new” ways of thinking and doing
environmental education research for a post-pandemic future (Rodrigues & Lowan-Trudeau, 2021).

Methods and Data Sources/Evidence: I thickly describe my research contexts, including the city of Pomona, the Pomona Valley Certified Farmers Market, and the activist collective, the Pomona Community Farmer Alliance (PCFA), all located within eastern Los Angeles County, California. Drawing on two and a half years of feminist participatory research with the PCFA and scholarship focused on the activist-scholar nexus (Alkon & Norgaard, 2009; Croog et al., 2018; Julier, 2019; Levkoe et al., 2019; Reynolds et al., 2018; Stapleton, 2019, 2021), I elucidate an intersectional feminist food studies praxis. My data sources include fieldnotes, historical document analysis, and interviews with PCFA activists.

Results/Point of View: Using empirical data to support the intersectional feminist food studies praxis I develop, I highlight the importance of elevating the politics of knowledge, attunement to the affective domain (e.g., care and emotion), and support for local and systemic transformation. I suggest that the pandemic has exposed the need for greater reciprocity between research and practice, especially that which takes into account the ways in which structures and systems disproportionately marginalize specific groups of people, ecologies, and other living beings in intersectional ways.

Significance: I highlight the ways in which intersectional feminist praxes can shape EE research and practice, especially for scholars and activist-scholars working in informal and nonformal educational contexts like urban farms, community gardens, outdoor schools, farmers markets, aquariums and zoos, neighborhoods, and 4H programs.

Author

• Teresa Lloro, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona