1st Edition
Organizing Eating Communicating for Equity Across U.S. Food Systems
This book develops "organizing eating" as an organizational-communication centered framework for understanding how communication and power combine to actively shape eating and working in the U.S. food system.
Drawing together established scholars, the book sheds light on how the interconnected aspects of power are communicative in nature, shaping and constraining the possibilities for organizing across the food system. The chapters provide grounded insight into the role of racism, corporate and state power, food cooperatives, urban farm systems, food policy, and labor practices, drawing attention to the pathways needed to pursue more equitable food systems. Providing readers with a set of useful critical conceptual tools and an understanding of communication frameworks, chapters identify common principles for critical organizing within the food movement and addresses the relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national uprising against anti-Black violence for understanding the urgent possibilities of food justice.
This cohesive collection of cutting-edge scholarship will be of interest to organizational communication scholars, critical/cultural communication scholars, environmental communication scholars, and health communication scholars; and the interdisciplinary fields of environmental studies, agriculture and food studies, and organization and labor studies.
1. Organizing Eating: Food, Communication, and Power Sarah E. Dempsey 2. Hunger, Survivance, and Reparative Food Policy: A Racial Analysis of the "Right to Food" Adam Pine and Rebecca de Souza 3. "The Rules For the Food System We All Eat By": How the U.S. Farm Bill (Re)Structures Capitalist Food Politics Kathleen Hunt 4. Contesting Institutional Narratives and Core Assumptions about Detroit’s Mass Water Shutoffs: Collaborative Writing for Water Justice Rahul Mitra, Nadia Gaber, Roslyn Bouier and Shea Howell 5. Unemployment & Food (In)security: (Un)just Governance in Unemployment Organizations Angela N. Gist-Mackey and Debbie S. Dougherty 6. Communicative Considerations for Urban Food Governance: Toward Food Privilege or Food Justice in Denver, Colorado Constance Gordon 7. Food Chain Workers Challenging the Corporate Colonization of Food System Communication Sarah E. Dempsey 8. Addressing Health Inequalities through Worker and Consumer Cooperatives: Co-op Cincy’s Organizing for Food Justice Heather M. Zoller 9. Organizing Tensions in Community Supported Agriculture Megan Schraedley 10. Building Collaborative Empowerment through Regionally Attentive Organizing: A Comparative Case Study of Place-Making Within Two Appalachia Food Nonprofits Sonia R. Ivancic and Kristen E. Okamoto 11. Building Food Policy and Communication Infrastructure Beyond the Critique Marianne LeGreco
Biography
Sarah E. Dempsey is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research and teaching engages feminist theory, critical, cultural studies, and organization studies to explore relationships between communication, corporate power, labor, and collective organizing. She has published research in outlets like Food, Culture & Society, Management Communication Quarterly, Children’s Geographies, and Organization, as well as in the edited collection Food & Place: A Critical Introduction.
