We Need to Tell This Story: Collective Memory, Food Access, and Health in MA Cities

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Abstract

Drawing on qualitative data from a four-year study of urban agriculture in Massachusetts cities, this paper examines the role of collective memory in narratives about the relationship between food, farming and health in urban communities. It demonstrates that by recalling the past, farmers and advocates position urban farming as both project of cultural reclamation and and as a challenge to structures of inequality. This analysis points to the importance of attending to narratives and collective action grounded not in individual illness identities, but oriented to the conditions of possibility for community-level health and well-being.

Author

• Sara N. Shostak, Brandeis University