Research article Special Issues

Community context of food justice: reflections on a free local produce program in a New Orleans food desert

  • Received: 24 December 2016 Accepted: 02 May 2017 Published: 16 May 2017
  • Food justice discourse has emerged partly in response to the critique of alternative food networks during the last decade, but its justice conceptualization tends to be too narrowly focused on food-related injustices rather than broader social injustices that shape food access and food sovereignty, a gap we address. Our analysis of a semi-experimental free local food program we administered in a New Orleans food desert demonstrates that several community context factors shape the residents’ access to a local food market in this neighborhood: fragmented social ties, digital and generational divides, perpetual infrastructural failure, and the location of the market within the neighborhood. We argue that food justice discourse needs to incorporate social and cultural community contexts in its operationalization of food access and sovereignty, especially regarding how the latter concept is defined and executed in practice.

    Citation: Laura McKinney, Yuki Kato. Community context of food justice: reflections on a free local produce program in a New Orleans food desert[J]. AIMS Agriculture and Food, 2017, 2(2): 183-200. doi: 10.3934/agrfood.2017.2.183

    Related Papers:

  • Food justice discourse has emerged partly in response to the critique of alternative food networks during the last decade, but its justice conceptualization tends to be too narrowly focused on food-related injustices rather than broader social injustices that shape food access and food sovereignty, a gap we address. Our analysis of a semi-experimental free local food program we administered in a New Orleans food desert demonstrates that several community context factors shape the residents’ access to a local food market in this neighborhood: fragmented social ties, digital and generational divides, perpetual infrastructural failure, and the location of the market within the neighborhood. We argue that food justice discourse needs to incorporate social and cultural community contexts in its operationalization of food access and sovereignty, especially regarding how the latter concept is defined and executed in practice.


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