How diverse communities are finding new ways to grow food, build movements, and challenge institutions to create more just and sustainable food futures.
Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are working to create more just and sustainable worlds. An expansive follow-up to the field-defining Cultivating Food Justice, this edited volume provides an overview of food justice scholar-activism, redefining the field and looking to theoretical and political futures. The contributors synthesize and analyze the findings of food justice research to imagine socioecological relationships that are both environmentally sustainable and socially just. They tell new stories of what food justice is, what it is for, and what it can become.
The contributors, who include a racially diverse group of scholars, students, and activists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds across the US, highlight the inward-facing movement work of communities envisioning and enacting their own food- and land-based traditions, as well as external work as they build alliances with institutions and kindred social movements.
By:
Alison Hope Alkon,
Julian Agyeman
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262553698
ISBN 10: 0262553694
Pages: 356
Publication Date: 03 March 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Series Foreword ix Touching Dirt, Together: On Nurturing in and Beyond the Political Moment xi Introduction: Nurturing Just and Sustainable Food Futures 1 Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman I Dreams 1 A North Star Politics of Emancipation: How Radical and BIPOC Traditions Influence Food Movement Strategies 25 Antonio Roman-Alcala 2 Queering Food Justice: Confronting White Heteropatriarchy in US Agriculture 39 Michaela Hoffelmeyer and Isaac Sohn Leslie 3 Toward a Decolonial Cuisine: The Entangled Politics of Food Revitalization in Native-Led Culinary Organizations 55 Ash McLeod and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet 4 Plotting Our Legacy: Radical Black Ecology from the Provisional Plot to the Garden Lot 71 Alexis Wiley and Akilah Chatman 5 Healing Colonial Wounds: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Land Back, and Cultural Resurgence 85 Charlotte Cote (Tseshaht Nuu-chah-nulth) II Confrontations 6 From Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Origins, Histories, and Solutions 105 Gabriel R. Valle and Greig Tor Guthey 7 Gentrification, White Privilege, and the Political Shift from Food Deserts to Food Apartheid: Reflections from a Millennial Food Justice Scholar 119 Justin Sean Myers 8 No Justice Without Land: The Struggle for Autonomy in the San Diego Urban Agricultural Movement 131 Belinda C. Ramirez 9 Undoing Coloniality Through Nutrition Narratives 147 Lucy Aphramor III Encounters 10 Food Assistance Justice: The Discourse and Practice of Food Justice in US Food Banks 163 Alana Haynes Stein 11 Street Food Justice 177 Charlotte Glennie Roberts and Catherine Brinkley 12 Digitizing Food Justice: How Community-Powered Tech Tools Are Being Used to Redesign Neighborhoods and Reimagine Food Justice 191 Antwi Akom, Tessa Cruz, and Analena Hope Hassberg 13 Decolonized, Community-Rooted™ Food Justice: The Process of Shifting Power and Decision-Making in Food System Planning Processes 207 Kamal Bell, Natalie Eley, Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Justin Robinson, Camryn Smith, Gizem Templeton, Gretchen Thompson, and Jen Zuckerman 14 White Masculinist Pasts → Black Feminist Futures: Lessons from Spelman College's Victory Garden as Black World-Making 223 Whitney Barr and Nik Heynen 15 Disrupting the Narrative: Youth Storytelling for Food Justice 237 Laurel Bellante, Megan A. Carney, Deyanira Ibarra, Mary Beth Jager, Nelda Ruiz, Claudio Rodriguez, Tommey Jodie, Kaleigh Brown, Rezwana Islam, and Amrita Khalsa IV Intersections 16 New Openings for Worker Justice in the Food System: A Call for Centering Labor in Food Justice 253 Teresa M. Mares and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern 17 Creating Labor Sovereignty: Worker-Driven Movements for Justice 267 Vera Chang 18 First Food Equity: A Reparative Approach 283 Chellamal Keshavan 19 The Green New Deal and the Future of Food Justice 297 Maggie Dickinson 20 From Carceral Food Systems to Abolitionist Food Justice 311 Joshua Sbicca, Carrie Freshour, Kanav Kathuria, and Sara Black 21 Concluding Thoughts 327 Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman Index 335
Alison Hope Alkon is Professor of Community Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz. She is author or coeditor of Black, White, and Green, The New Food Activism, and A Recipe for Gentrification. With Julian Agyeman, she is the coeditor of Cultivating Food Justice. Julian Agyeman is Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. His books include Introducing Just Sustainabilities, Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice, and Sharing Cities. With Alison Alkon, he is the coeditor of Cultivating Food Justice.
