Organized Session, Workshop or Roundtable Title
Social Activism and Social Movements are Growing Green
Participation Type
Organized Session
Participant Type
Multi-presenter
Organized Session, Workshop or Roundtable Abstract
This session has been convened by the Southern Anthropological Association.
Organizer
C. Matt Samson, SAS Convener
Type of Session
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Developing Cultural Context and Recognizing the Civic Professional: A Study of Home Gardening and Food Security in Rural Appalachia
Presentation #1 Abstract
Supplementing safety net programs, local food production initiatives are beginning to gain traction as proposed methods of addressing issues of food security and agricultural literacy. In an effort to foster self-sufficient food procurement in Grayson County, Virginia, a low-income rural region of Appalachia, container gardens were gifted to clients of a mobile food pantry through a grant-funded program. The significance of container food production was investigated by recognizing the participants’ unique lived experiences as factors leading to their individual program outcomes and by creating space for them to offer community-specific suggestions for program improvement. A deeper understanding of the local economy and current food landscape was gained by compiling a historical social narrative through field observations and ethnographic research. This developed the cultural context for organizing and grounding phenomenological interviews that documented the varied perspectives of program participation. Though a significant contribution to the original goal of increased food security was not seen, these simple and accessible container food gardens fostered a sense of pride, wellbeing, and self-sufficiency among resource-limited, and often physically challenged, participants. By recognizing these individuals as experts within their own community and partners in the construction of knowledge, noteworthy insights are explored in the paper to offer viable options for increasing both food security and quality of life for this and other rural areas of the United States.
At-A-Glance Bios- Participant #1
After graduating from Virginia Tech in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics, Dobson moved to West Virginia to coordinate the third year of a local farm-to-school program. She later moved to Washington State to continue a twenty-year-old home gardening project, solidifying her interest in pursuing home food production as a method to combat food insecurity in rural areas.
Presentation #2 Title
Agents of Change and the Local Food Movement
Presentation #2 Abstract
In 2000, a group of residents and farmers in the mountainous and westernmost region of North Carolina, launched a local food campaign. In the context of ongoing farm loss in relation to an increasingly dominant global market, organizers conceived of local food as a means to engage people with farms and activate them directly in processes to sustain them. Over a period of 15 years, locally grown food has become more and more a part of the food system in this region and a significant aspect of public discourse around agriculture, land use, economic development, food access, and quality of life. In looking at the history and evolution of the local food movement here and in discussing the theory of change that informs the strategies and actions of movement organizers, this paper will explore the meaning of “local” in relation to food and social change and offer a framework for thinking about how and why local food system building can be a means of challenging and changing the dominant agri-food industry. In this paper, I will draw on my ethnographic research of the movement and on insights I have gained as movement practitioner since 2007.
At-A-Glance Bios- Participant #2
Allison Perrett is an applied anthropologist and has been involved in the local food movement in the Southern Appalachian region as both a practitioner and scholar since 2007. She co-directs the research at ASAP's Local Food Research Center, which is studying the evolving food system in Western North Carolina and the social, economic, and environmental impacts of localizing food systems.
Presentation #3 Title
Planting Trees and Shaping Consciousness in Guatemalan Environmentalism
Presentation #3 Abstract
This paper provides an overview of contemporary environmental activism in Guatemala, largely from the vantage point of the founder of a reforestation project in the western highlands who situates his activism in discourses of Maya cosmovision and community well-being. Ethnographic and interview data based on fieldwork in K’iche’ and Mam communities is discussed in a context linking environmental concerns to larger social change agendas in Guatemala during a period when the political process is to some extent being radically reshaped in the wake of corruption scandals and trials focused on crimes against humanity during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war nearly two decades ago. Underpinning the analysis are perspectives from political ecology as well as anthropological and religious humanism that situate environmentalism in Guatemala in a comparative context, including frameworks of cultural rights and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in other regions of Latin America.
At-A-Glance Bios- Participant #3
C. Mathews (Matt) Samson is an associate professor of anthropology at Davidson College. His areas of interest are in Maya ethnic identity, religious change, and human environmental rights in Guatemala.
Keywords
Activism, Agriculture and Agrarian Systems, Applied Anthropology, Community, Ecology and Environment, Place, Religion, Social Movements
Start Date
4-8-2016 8:30 AM
End Date
4-8-2016 10:00 AM
Developing Cultural Context and Recognizing the Civic Professional: A Study of Home Gardening and Food Security in Rural Appalachia
Big Sandy Conference Center - Tech Room 02
Supplementing safety net programs, local food production initiatives are beginning to gain traction as proposed methods of addressing issues of food security and agricultural literacy. In an effort to foster self-sufficient food procurement in Grayson County, Virginia, a low-income rural region of Appalachia, container gardens were gifted to clients of a mobile food pantry through a grant-funded program. The significance of container food production was investigated by recognizing the participants’ unique lived experiences as factors leading to their individual program outcomes and by creating space for them to offer community-specific suggestions for program improvement. A deeper understanding of the local economy and current food landscape was gained by compiling a historical social narrative through field observations and ethnographic research. This developed the cultural context for organizing and grounding phenomenological interviews that documented the varied perspectives of program participation. Though a significant contribution to the original goal of increased food security was not seen, these simple and accessible container food gardens fostered a sense of pride, wellbeing, and self-sufficiency among resource-limited, and often physically challenged, participants. By recognizing these individuals as experts within their own community and partners in the construction of knowledge, noteworthy insights are explored in the paper to offer viable options for increasing both food security and quality of life for this and other rural areas of the United States.