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Agric Hum Values (2012) 29:455466 DOI 10.1007/s10460-012-9363-0
Growing food justice by planting an anti-oppression foundation: opportunities and obstacles for a budding social movement
Joshua Sbicca
Accepted: 27 February 2012 / Published online: 15 April 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract The food justice movement is a budding social movement premised on ideologies that critique the structural oppression responsible for many injustices throughout the agrifood system. Tensions often arise however when a radical ideology in various versions from multiple previous movements is woven into mobilization efforts by organizations seeking to build the activist base needed to transform the agrifood system. I provide a detailed case study of the Peoples Grocery, a food justice organization in West Oakland, California, to show how anti-oppression ideology provides the foundation upon which food justice activists mobilize. Peoples Grocery builds off of previous social justice movements within West Oakland, reected in activist meaning making around ideas of social justice and autonomy. However, the ongoing mobilization process also faces complications stemming from diverse individual interpretations of food justicethat may not be reected in the stated goals of food justice organizationsas well as structural constraints. Consequently, building a social movement premised on food justice opens up social spaces for new activism, but may not be a panacea for solving food-related racial and economic inequality. The ndings have implications for newly forming food justice organizations, future research on the food justice movement, as well as for theories on social movement mobilization.
Keywords Food justice Peoples Grocery
West Oakland, CA Ideology Framing
Environmental sociology
AbbreviationsAFM Alternative food movement BPP Black Panther PartyEJ Environmental justiceFJ Food justiceFJM Food justice movement FJO Food justice organization PG Peoples Grocery
Introduction
The alternative food movement (AFM) largely mobilizes activists around localism and sustainability. White middle-class activists dominate this movement and they focus on reform strategies, which reect an ecologically focused ideology stemming from traditional environmentalism and a dedication to local alternatives to globalized agrifood systems (Alkon 2008; DuPuis and Goodman 2005). However, the AFM often fails to incorporate concerns about racial and economic inequality in the agrifood system. Charges of elitism have grown in light of inuential organizations such as Slow Food USA championing local organic food despite its high costs, which often shut out low-income consumers.1
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