Intersectional and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Interspecies Food Justice Pedagogies

• In Event: Animals in Environmental Education: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Curriculum and Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper begins with a discussion of the nascent conversation in EE regarding what I refer to as “interspecies food justice.” Through cross-pollination with food justice scholarship, critical food systems education (CFSE) has developed as “a tripartite perspective consisting of a theoretical framework, set of pedagogies, and vision for policy that posits food systems education as an inherently political and economic process that is mediated by racial and ethnic histories and identities, while also maintaining that these educational processes can be transformed to be a form of education for liberation” (Meek & Tarlau, 2015, p. 134). As this definition of CFSE illustrates, mainstream food systems education perpetuates racial and class-based narratives that ultimately foster social exclusion (e.g., vis-à-vis local food or “farm-to-table” movements), despite amiable intentions like “bring[ing] good food to others” (Guthman, 2008, p. 434). While this work is compelling and significant, [critical] food systems education has yet to seriously tackle another glaring injustice: species. Russell and Semenko recently noted, for example, “critical food education must include illuminating the horrifying conditions for both animals and human laborers in the factory farms and slaughterhouses responsible for much of the meat and dairy consumed by North Americans and elsewhere” (2016, p. 217), suggesting that a CFSE not only consider how such systems impact consumers of food along lines of race and class, but also producers (factory farm and slaughterhouse laborers; fieldworkers) and the animals who have no choice but to participate (and ultimately suffer and die) in these processes. Thus, CFSE would benefit from intersectional analyses that delve deeply into race, class, and species injustices.

This paper, therefore, takes an interdisciplinary analytic approach by drawing on feminist studies (Adams, 2002; Carastathis, 2014; Deckha, 2012) and critical food studies scholarship within EE (Kahn, 2011; Lloro-Bidart, 2015c; Meek & Tarlau, 2015; Pedersen, 2015; Probyn-Rapsey et al., 2016; Rowe, 2011; Rowe & Rocha, 2015; Russell & Semenko, 2016) to consider interspecies food justice as a critical component of critical food systems education. To do this, I first draw on theories of intersectionality to conceptualize interspecies food justice as not separate from other conversations about food justice (e.g. those that center race and class), but rather to explore how intersectional and interdisciplinary pedagogies might afford students the opportunity to understand various kinds of food injustices as intricately linked through power structures (e.g., neoliberal capitalism) that exploit some humans and other animals alike. After this initial conceptual framing, I provide an overview of the Critical Food Studies service-learning course I teach and research at a large public university in southern California. I then discuss how intersectional theories guide my own pedagogy, pointing to two concrete classroom examples. Next, I share several pieces of empirical data from my research on the course (student fieldnotes and autoethnographies; post-course interviews) to demonstrate how some students have come to understand various kinds of food injustice as linked. To conclude, I draw out the implications of these interspecies food justice pedagogies for EE and critical food systems education.

Author

• Teresa Katrina Lloro-Bidart, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona