Collaborative Ethnographic Teams in Community Food Security

• In Event: 2322 - Activities and Techniques Poster Session

Abstract

The Research Intensive Community (RIC) Model, developed at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX in 2003, serves as the methodological foundation for the "Everybody Eats: The Urban Re-Rural community food security ethnography" project, led by principal investigator Dr. Sarah Gatson, Ph.D.. This poster highlights the RIC model in practice for different teams pursuing avenues of this research. Here, graduate student team leaders discuss their subprojects of the “Everybody Eats” research, and the methodology used to pursue their specific research objectives via teams of undergraduate researchers. Emmanuel uses surveys and qualitative interviews to evaluate food access and food security at the campus dorm level. The student teams involved in this project assess the food needs of students, their experience with provisioning food, their knowledge about food production, and assesses to what extent can they as students alter university property (i.e. creating gardens in existing builds). McNeely investigates the meaning making of religious cultures in Brazos County, TX as it interacts with community food security, utilizing participant-observation teams to volunteer at religiously affiliated food pantries in the area and document their experiences in field notes. Young’s research team uses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) data and document analysis to investigate food services and institutional conditions in U.S. immigration detention facilities. Cisneros applies an intersectional approach to understanding the nutritional deficit that encompasses poverty eating by having students of Texas A&M University create recipe books following WIC and SNAP provision guidelines and auto-ethnography to encourage critical reflection.

Authors

• Andrew Craig McNeely, Texas A&M University

• Marissa Renee Cisneros, Texas A&M University

• Tiffany Amorette Young, Texas A&M University