Grasping at the Roots: A Study of Sustainable Food Justice and Racial Healing Through Black Agrarian Histories
Location
PANEL: Race, Place, and Environmental Histories
Adam Joseph Lewis Center Hallock Auditorium
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
5-13-2022 2:00 PM
End Date
5-13-2022 3:00 PM
Abstract
This research project seeks to honor the knowledge of elders and scholars in the field of Black agrarianism, while also applying their wisdom towards the contemporary issues of environmental racism and food apartheid in predominantly-Black areas, in order to build community-based praxis of resistance. The researcher asks the central questions: How can Black people mend their relationship to nature in order to position themselves as rightful caretakers of the land, and how have Black communities done so in the past to develop liberation praxis? By combining analysis of foundational texts on Black agrarianism with the geographic and historical context of Black agricultural roots in Cleveland, Ohio, this paper argues that by returning to the land to tend and raise crops — a task once demanded of African people enslaved across the United States — Black communities can feed those most impacted by food apartheid, while simultaneously reclaiming their right to the land. Grounded in Black geographies theory, this analysis also places emphasis on the spatial imagination of Black people in the United States and how they have come to understand their position in both the environmental world and an oppressive social reality in which Black bodies are systematically dehumanized. Ultimately, the researcher is seeking to (1) redefine Black people’s relationship to land and the Earth, (2) shift the narrative of their connection to land away from being only defined by trauma and (3) begin to develop an adaptable pedagogy for building food sovereignty in Black urban communities.
Keywords:
Black agrarianism, Food justice, Urban agriculture, Community resilience
Recommended Citation
Menafee, Vera Grace, "Grasping at the Roots: A Study of Sustainable Food Justice and Racial Healing Through Black Agrarian Histories" (2022). Research Symposium. 7.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2022/presentations/7
Award
Oberlin College Research Fellowship
Project Mentor(s)
Jay Fiskio, Environmental Studies
2022
Grasping at the Roots: A Study of Sustainable Food Justice and Racial Healing Through Black Agrarian Histories
PANEL: Race, Place, and Environmental Histories
Adam Joseph Lewis Center Hallock Auditorium
This research project seeks to honor the knowledge of elders and scholars in the field of Black agrarianism, while also applying their wisdom towards the contemporary issues of environmental racism and food apartheid in predominantly-Black areas, in order to build community-based praxis of resistance. The researcher asks the central questions: How can Black people mend their relationship to nature in order to position themselves as rightful caretakers of the land, and how have Black communities done so in the past to develop liberation praxis? By combining analysis of foundational texts on Black agrarianism with the geographic and historical context of Black agricultural roots in Cleveland, Ohio, this paper argues that by returning to the land to tend and raise crops — a task once demanded of African people enslaved across the United States — Black communities can feed those most impacted by food apartheid, while simultaneously reclaiming their right to the land. Grounded in Black geographies theory, this analysis also places emphasis on the spatial imagination of Black people in the United States and how they have come to understand their position in both the environmental world and an oppressive social reality in which Black bodies are systematically dehumanized. Ultimately, the researcher is seeking to (1) redefine Black people’s relationship to land and the Earth, (2) shift the narrative of their connection to land away from being only defined by trauma and (3) begin to develop an adaptable pedagogy for building food sovereignty in Black urban communities.
