Research - Rachel Slocum

header.html

Assistant Professor
Geography and Earth Sciences
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Current research: Food - Race - Geography

To many, these words do not have apparent connections and to even use the term ‘race’ is to invite all manner of misunderstandings and disagreements. Race, here, refers to the associations societies make about people’s physical features that are appraised relative to a ‘normal’ set of features. In the case of the US, looking and living white is the norm. Groups of people are thus ‘racialized’ against that norm (less white, more white). Race refers to the physical results of that norm—different groups marked by these features living in different places, quite often separate from each other. It refers to different life chances (what disease do you get, at what age do you die, with how much comfort) that come from different education levels, occupation and income. Race is most typically associated with racial inequalities or, what scholars refer to as institutionalized racism—racism that is not personal or intentional but rather stuck in the many ways a society works. Using the term race rather than ethnicity is an argument for recognizing these facts in order to build a non-racist society. Many acknowledge the need to deal with the subject of race and racism in this country, including President Obama who said "...race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now" (March 18, 2008)

Few subjects are more compelling to people around the world. We are, after all, what, where and how we eat. Throughout history, state policy and social movements have sought to shape how society produces, procures, cooks and consumes food. My research has focused on one of these efforts that came to prominence over the last 15 years--actions taken to localize food production and consumption. Coalitions of nonprofit organizations have formed to promote the consumption of sustainably produced local food. They have done so in order to bolster the dwindling population of small to midsized farmers on the US landscape against the concentration of agriculture under corporate ownership. Using the term food security, these groups point to the lack of availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in some places (nonwhite city neighborhoods, rural areas) and the health consequences that could result (e.g. obesity, Type II diabetes). Some advocates are motivated by the desire to change farming. Many among the public are especially concerned about their own health. This effort, while comprised of alternative thinking, educated people is not fringe, having entered the popular, state and corporate domains through the now ubiquitous terms “fresh”, “local”, “organic”, “family farmer” and especially “healthy”. Food scares reinforce the point and reactions like taxing ‘junk food’ or restricting food stamp purchases abound.

I wanted to know whether these well-intentioned activists and public health workers acknowledged the role of race in the local and global food system and what changes they thought might be needed to produce a different system. From a food justice perspective, I wanted to know how healthy local advocates answered questions like:

Our society has a racial division of labor; Latinos are more likely than white people to be picking our vegetables, people of color are more likely to work in food processing. Why? What do healthy local advocates want to do about that?

In impoverished and nonwhite places, scholars have observed a confluence of fast food restaurants and convenience stores that do not sell fresh or nutritious food. They have also found a tendency for healthy local advocates to position all small scale grocers with convenience stores as contributing to the problem of fast food access even though this may not be true. The complexities sometimes get lost in activist praxis. The fix for this problem is often assumed to be farmers' markets, changing the offering of convenience stores or inviting in organic vendors (e.g. Whole Foods). How do healthy local advocates understand why these relationships exist among race, less nutritious food and place and what does that mean for their advocacy?

Healthy local advocates who focus on food security make links between lack of access to 'good food' and obesity. Nationally, some groups of color are disproportionately likely to be overweight and, more importantly, to become ill, to be undiagnosed and to go untreated for lack of health insurance. But as Julie Guthman points out, while this disproportionality must be acknowledged, it is problematic for fresh produce and exercise to be the solution and for nonwhite people to become the symbol of overweight and unhealthy. What else besides exercise and changing eating habits might be considered? Who gets targeted with exercise programs based on what assumptions about eating practices?

How do differently racialized groups understand food? Does everyone think buying local is a great idea? Does everyone understand healthy, fresh, organic in the same way? If not, how do healthy local advocates take these different perspectives into consideration?

Do different racialized groups have different associations with farming, gardening, particular foods and practices around food? Why? How do those differences affect the strategies and programming of healthy local advocates?

Why are some groups of color are disproportionately hungry and food insecure compared to white people and what do healthy local advocates want to do about it?

Local/sustainable or organic is too costly for some and not everyone has a car, a refrigerator, a stove and time to cook. How might this affect the healthy local campaign and its programs? What racialized life does it take to know what has vitamins or to be comfortable in an upscale co-op much less able to buy things?

Why is so much healthy local programming about educating people to cook and eat 'good food', getting people to grow their own, opening farmers' markets, getting local food into schools, building vermicomposters and encouraging exercise? These may be good and well intentioned programs but they indicate that for healthy local advocates, the problem is about individual behavior and knowledge. Why not lobby for a living wage, social programs or amnesty for the undocumented? These programs do not rise from a analysis of the food system as a system encompassing race, gender and class inequalities.

Why is it so difficult for progressive, educated healthy local advocates to think about race and to be allied with efforts launched by groups of color for fair wages, fair trade, land rights, protection of the undocumented, environmental justice, access to culturally desired but non-locally grown food, separatist food sovereignty, buy Black and so on?

From my research and that of others it is apparent that these questions are typically not addressed.

The research involved a web survey, years of participant observation and numerous interviews of people in alternative food networks. It was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. I have published and co-authored academic papers on this subject and a an edited volume on the relationship between race and food is currently under review for publication.

Race, food and public space: an ethnography of the Minneapolis Farmers' Market

Building on the previous study, this work situates farmers' markets in the context of a burgeoning interest in local food and the promotion of farmers' markets as vehicles for food change. Through markets, alternative food organizations seek to support local farmers, regional economies, sustainable farming and better access to vegetables.

As with the earlier study, I am again focusing on race on the understanding that there is a racial dimension to farming and marketing. This ethnography is interested in food practices operating at the scale of engagements among vendors or with customers, the methods of growing particular foods and ways of marketing.

This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Pdfs are available under Publications.

PhD research: Cities and Climate Protection

My doctoral research (Geography, Clark University) explored the translation of global climate change into a local issue in cities across the United States. The research explored municipal commitments to greenhouse gas emissions abatement as part of the Cities for Climate Protection campaign launched by ICLEI. The findings were based on 135 interviews I conducted in Minneapolis, Tucson and Seattle as well as phone interviews with campaign contacts in 12 other cities. This municipal level climate politics recast the city scale as the site of capacity and responsibility in the face of national inaction on global warming. I argued that the campaign drew on a neoliberal understanding of the urban citizen as consumer instead of cultivating the 'counterpublics' required to provoke greater accountability for US emissions (pdf of EPA paper). I also wrote about strategies of the Cities for Climate Protection campaign and Greenpeace Canada that were deployed to make climate change locally relevant. People sought to ‘protect the climate’ on behalf of polar bears, Saguaro cactus and future generations. I argued that a good climate strategy would ask constituents to see relational connections among scaled processes and across the spectrum of life (pdf of EPD paper). I received a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct this research as well as numerous Teaching and Research Assistantships from the Department of Geography and my supervisor, David Angel.

MA research: Gender and land tenure

My MA degree (International Development, Community and Environment Program, Clark University) explored gender relations, land tenure and development ideologies in a rice scheme called the Office du Niger in Ségou, Mali. I was interested in how women transgressed, re-articulated and evaded gendered production-oriented development policy as well as how that policy stymied their attemps for land and sufficient time to grow rice, onions and chili. I conducted interviews across the five zones of the Office and held focus groups where women recorded a message to the Agriculture Minister and international donors, namely ARPON the Dutch aid agency, concerning their desire to rent rice plots. Later, the tapes were aired in a program on national radio in Bamako. In addition, I plotted gendered daily work schedules and mapped land tenure arrangements. Women's customary use rights to land was a tenure pattern not observed in the Office. Strong support for development ideologies favoring increased rice production by both international donors and the state meant women-in-development programming centered on hulling machines, not land access. Women secretly rented land nonetheless. Men's responsibilities to the household were also the subject of much discussion. Women claimed men no longer purchased household staples nor withheld enough rice from sale for yearly household consumption, resulting in a dearth during the lean months. Men argued that, with land, the gendered household relationship would change dramatically and in ways they did not wish. My research was made possible by a Fulbright scholarship and a Peace Corps fellowship from the IDCE program.