Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Anthropology

Major Professor

David Himmelgreen, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Nancy Romero-Daza, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Joseph Dorsey, Ph.D.

Keywords

race, food insecurity, food apartheid, health inequity, school gardens

Abstract

In this thesis, I aim to investigate the impact of food racism on Black communities, with a specific focus on the importance of gardening in combatting food apartheid and fostering holistic connections to nature and community in school-aged children. Inequitable access to major retail supermarkets and unequal distribution of healthy food options are intentionally occurring patterns in the food spaces of predominately Black communities. These food system inequities exacerbate a lack of consumption and potential consequences on the health and well-being of children of color particularly during critical physical and cognitive developmental periods.

Many solutions to these inequities entail implementing school gardens and nutrition programs that teach children how to eat healthy and what well-balanced meals should consist of. However, nutritional education alone as a method to create healthier eating habits, overlooks a history of racism and sociopolitical influences that created these inequitable food patterns in the first place. Additionally, such traditional methods draw on the assumption that children do not eat healthy foods because they do not know what they are. Although, in many instances in these communities, the knowledge of healthy foods is there but the accessibility and affordability of them is not.

This study takes place in a food-insecure, predominately Black inner-city in west-central Florida. It includes semi-structured interviews with four Black gardeners and a photovoice project involving 12 fifth-grade students where I explore the outcomes of school gardening including its ability to connect students with nature, enhance their knowledge of local food production, and strengthen community autonomy and relationships by sharing ecological knowledge passed down through generations. I employ frameworks in Black ecology and tenets of food politics to conceptualize historical, social, and political contexts of food access while repurposing the use of school gardens beyond dietary behavioral changes alone, but also for its alternative and holistic outcomes that may help to resist systemic food inequities.

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