Back to the Roots: Memory, Inequality, and Urban Agriculture

Sara Shostak

Published by Rutgers University Press 2021

Back to the Roots

Memory, Inequality, and Urban Agriculture

Sara Shostak

In the series Nature, Society, and Culture

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813590189

Overview
Contents

About this book

Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, urban farmers and gardeners are reclaiming cultural traditions linked to food, farming, and health; challenging systemic racism and injustice in the food system; demanding greater community control of resources in marginalized neighborhoods; and moving towards their visions of more equitable urban futures. As part of this urgent work, urban farmers and gardeners encounter and reckon with both the cultural meanings and material legacies of the past. Drawing on their narratives, Back to the Roots demonstrates that urban agriculture is a critical domain for explorations of, and challenges to, the long standing inequalities that shape both the materiality of cities and the bodies of their inhabitants.

Author / Editor information

SARA SHOSTAK is an associate professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she teaches in the Department of Sociology and the Health: Science, Society and Policy Program.

Reviews

"Drawing on their narratives, Back to the Roots demonstrates that urban agriculture is a critical domain for explorations of, and challenges to, the long standing inequalities that shape both the materiality of cities and the bodies of their inhabitants."

— American Sociological Association - Environmental Sociology News

"A timely, creative, and comprehensive portrait of urban farming that offers a vivid and theoretically sophisticated account of how memory and meaning making shape cities. This is a must-read for those interested in urban agriculture, as well as those who care about memory, culture, and place."

— Japonica Brown-Saracino, author of How Places Make Us: Novel LBQ Identities in Four Small Cities

"Author: Health equity and racial justice grow alongside the vegetables at Massachusetts urban farms" by Carrie Healy

— New England Public Media

"Back to the Roots lays bare the simultaneous and contradictory pull of love, community, tenacity, inequity, frustration, and hope that propels urban agriculture, as well as the critical need for greater accountability, inclusion, and equity."

— Laura Lawson, author of City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Cultivating the Commonwealth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
Chapter 2 The Powers of Food Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Chapter 3 Lineages and Land Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Chapter 4 Stories of the Soil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Chapter 5 Urban Futures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
Appendix A Into the Field: Data and Methods Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Appendix B Research and Reflexivity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 246
Illustrations
- Other: 10 color images
Keywords: Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Massachusetts; farmworkers; farming; farmers; urban farmers; garden; gardeners; food; health; systemic racism; food system; food industry; racism; marginalized neighborhoods; equitable urban futures; urban gardeners; inequalities; inequality; land; soil; plants; field

eBook

Published: May 14, 2021
ISBN: 9780813590189