Privilege and Mistake Making in the Practice of Activist-Scholarship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i4.1511Keywords:
Food justice, privilege, activist-scholarship, photovoiceAbstract
Simply stated, food justice emerges from an inherent critique of both the conventional food system and alternative food efforts as privileged and white. Food justice activist-scholarship aims to engage the critique through collaborative teaching and research that promotes social change. This work is often precarious, tied directly to questions of positionality. In this paper I discuss mistakes I have made in the practice of food justice activist-scholarship by drawing on examples from a photovoice project with youth.
References
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Angeles, Leonora C. and Geraldine Pratt. 2017. Emphathy and entangled engagements: Critical-creative methodologies in transnational spaces. GeoHumanities: Space, Place, and the Humanities 3, 269-278.
Bovy, Phoebe Maltz. 2014. Checking privilege checking. The Atlantic, May 7.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/check-your-check-your-privilege/361898/
Broad, Garrett. 2016. More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
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Finlay, Linda. 2002. Negotiating the swamp: the opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice. Qualitative Research 2, 209-230.
Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Coninuum.
Garzo Montalvo, Marcelo Felipe. 2015. To the American food justice movements: A critique that is also an offering. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 125–129.
Guthman, Julie. 2008. ‘If they only knew’: Color blindness and universalism in California alternative food institutions. Professional Geographer 60, 387-97.
Hale, Charles (ed). 2008. Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Hiemstra, Nancy and Emily Billo. 2016. Introduction to focus section: Feminist research and knowledge production in geography. The Professional Geographer DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2016.1208103
Horton, Miles & Friere, Paulo. 1990. We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations in Education and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Jargowski, Paul. 2015. Architecture of segregation: Civil unrest, the concentration or poverty, and public policy. Report: Race and Inequality. Washington DC: The Century Foundation (https://tcf.org/content/report/architecture-of-segregation/)
Johnson, Dale & Mitchell, Don. 2004. Syracuse hunger project. Syracuse Community Geography. http://www.communitygeography.org/index.php/projects/syracusehungerproject, Accessed October 28, 2017.
Katz, Cindi. 1994. Playing the field: Questions of fieldwork in geography. The Professional Geographer 46, 67-72.
Kinsman, Gary. 2005. The politics of revolution: Learning from autonomist Marxism. Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action 1, 44-53.
Lee, Frances. 2017. Why I’ve started to fear my fellow social justice activists. YES! Magazine,
October. http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/why-ive-started-to-fear-my-fellow-social-justice-activists-20171013
McIntosh, Peggy. 1989. White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, July/August.
Moss, Pamela. 2002. Taking on, thinking about, and doing feminist research in geography. In P. Moss (ed.), Feminist Geography in Practice: Research and Methods. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, pp 1-17.
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Parker, Brenda. 2016. The feminist geographer as killjoy: Excavating gendered urban power relations. The Professional Geographer DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2016.1208513
Preston, Stephanie and Frans B.M. de Waal. 2002. Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25, 1-72.
Reynolds, Kristin and Nevin Cohen. 2016. Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo and Laila Craighero. 2004. The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience 27, 169-192.
Roman-Alcalá, Antonio. 2015. Concerning the unbearable whiteness of urban farming. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 179–181.
Rose, Damaris. 1993. On feminism, method and methods in human geography: An idiosyncratic overview. Canadian Geographer 37, 57-61.
Rose, Gillian. 1997. Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography 21, 305-320.
Sbicca, Joshua. 2015. Solidarity and sweat equity: For reciprocal food justice research. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 63–67.
Slocum, Rachel, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, and Renata Blumberg. 2016. Solidarity, space and race: Toward geographies of agri-food justice. Justice Spatiale/Spatial Justice, special issue, Food Justice and Agriculture 9 (January): http://www.jssj.org/article/solidarite-espace-et-race-vers-des-geographies-de-la-justice-alimentaire/
Shotwell, Alexis. 2016. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Sharon. 2014. The politics of privilege-checking. Socialist Worker, November 18. https://socialistworker.org/2014/11/18/the-politics-of-privilege-checking
te Riele, Kitty. 2006. Youth ‘at risk’: Further marginalizing the marginalized? Journal of Education Policy 21, 129-145.
Wang, Caroline & Burris Mary Ann. 1997. Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior 24, 369-87. doi: 10.1177/109019819702400309
Weissman, Evan. 2015a. Brooklyn’s agrarian questions. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 30, 92-102.
Weissman, Evan. 2015b. Entrepreneurial endeavors: (re)producing neoliberalization through urban agriculture youth programming in Brooklyn, New York. Environmental Education Research 21, 351-364.
Weissman, Evan. Under review. Photovoice and youth perspectives on food justice. Appetite.
Angeles, Leonora C. and Geraldine Pratt. 2017. Emphathy and entangled engagements: Critical-creative methodologies in transnational spaces. GeoHumanities: Space, Place, and the Humanities 3, 269-278.
Bovy, Phoebe Maltz. 2014. Checking privilege checking. The Atlantic, May 7.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/check-your-check-your-privilege/361898/
Broad, Garrett. 2016. More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Calhoun, Craig. 2008. “Forward,” pp. xiii-xxv in C. Hale (ed). Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2015. Between the World and Me. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Coddington, Kate. 2016. Voice under scrutiny: Feminist methods, anticolonial responses, and new methodological tools. The Professional Geographer DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2016.1208512
Farrow, Heather, Pamela Moss, and Barbara Shaw. 1995. Symposium on feminist participatory research. Antipode 27, 71-74. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.1995.tb00262.x
Finlay, Linda. 2002. Negotiating the swamp: the opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice. Qualitative Research 2, 209-230.
Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Coninuum.
Garzo Montalvo, Marcelo Felipe. 2015. To the American food justice movements: A critique that is also an offering. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 125–129.
Guthman, Julie. 2008. ‘If they only knew’: Color blindness and universalism in California alternative food institutions. Professional Geographer 60, 387-97.
Hale, Charles (ed). 2008. Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Hiemstra, Nancy and Emily Billo. 2016. Introduction to focus section: Feminist research and knowledge production in geography. The Professional Geographer DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2016.1208103
Horton, Miles & Friere, Paulo. 1990. We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations in Education and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Jargowski, Paul. 2015. Architecture of segregation: Civil unrest, the concentration or poverty, and public policy. Report: Race and Inequality. Washington DC: The Century Foundation (https://tcf.org/content/report/architecture-of-segregation/)
Johnson, Dale & Mitchell, Don. 2004. Syracuse hunger project. Syracuse Community Geography. http://www.communitygeography.org/index.php/projects/syracusehungerproject, Accessed October 28, 2017.
Katz, Cindi. 1994. Playing the field: Questions of fieldwork in geography. The Professional Geographer 46, 67-72.
Kinsman, Gary. 2005. The politics of revolution: Learning from autonomist Marxism. Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action 1, 44-53.
Lee, Frances. 2017. Why I’ve started to fear my fellow social justice activists. YES! Magazine,
October. http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/why-ive-started-to-fear-my-fellow-social-justice-activists-20171013
McIntosh, Peggy. 1989. White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, July/August.
Moss, Pamela. 2002. Taking on, thinking about, and doing feminist research in geography. In P. Moss (ed.), Feminist Geography in Practice: Research and Methods. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, pp 1-17.
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1986. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge.
Parker, Brenda. 2016. The feminist geographer as killjoy: Excavating gendered urban power relations. The Professional Geographer DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2016.1208513
Preston, Stephanie and Frans B.M. de Waal. 2002. Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25, 1-72.
Reynolds, Kristin and Nevin Cohen. 2016. Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo and Laila Craighero. 2004. The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience 27, 169-192.
Roman-Alcalá, Antonio. 2015. Concerning the unbearable whiteness of urban farming. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 179–181.
Rose, Damaris. 1993. On feminism, method and methods in human geography: An idiosyncratic overview. Canadian Geographer 37, 57-61.
Rose, Gillian. 1997. Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography 21, 305-320.
Sbicca, Joshua. 2015. Solidarity and sweat equity: For reciprocal food justice research. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, 63–67.
Slocum, Rachel, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, and Renata Blumberg. 2016. Solidarity, space and race: Toward geographies of agri-food justice. Justice Spatiale/Spatial Justice, special issue, Food Justice and Agriculture 9 (January): http://www.jssj.org/article/solidarite-espace-et-race-vers-des-geographies-de-la-justice-alimentaire/
Shotwell, Alexis. 2016. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Sharon. 2014. The politics of privilege-checking. Socialist Worker, November 18. https://socialistworker.org/2014/11/18/the-politics-of-privilege-checking
te Riele, Kitty. 2006. Youth ‘at risk’: Further marginalizing the marginalized? Journal of Education Policy 21, 129-145.
Wang, Caroline & Burris Mary Ann. 1997. Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior 24, 369-87. doi: 10.1177/109019819702400309
Weissman, Evan. 2015a. Brooklyn’s agrarian questions. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 30, 92-102.
Weissman, Evan. 2015b. Entrepreneurial endeavors: (re)producing neoliberalization through urban agriculture youth programming in Brooklyn, New York. Environmental Education Research 21, 351-364.
Weissman, Evan. Under review. Photovoice and youth perspectives on food justice. Appetite.
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Published
2018-10-04
How to Cite
Weissman, E. (2018). Privilege and Mistake Making in the Practice of Activist-Scholarship. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(4), 1067–1084. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i4.1511
Issue
Section
Themed Section - Food Justice Scholar-Activism and Activist-Scholarship (Guest Eds Reynolds, Block, & Bradley)
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Authors agree to publish their articles in ACME under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
