Thesis
Ethnography of Urban Food Policy: Increasing Food Sovereignty in Bellingham, Washington
(2020)
Abstract
This research examines how three organizations in Whatcom County, Washington – the Whatcom Food Network working at the county level, the Birchwood Food Security Solutions Working Group working at a neighborhood level, and the Western Washington University Food Security Working Group working at an institutional level – address food insecurity and promote food sovereignty in the metropolitan setting of Bellingham, WA. I frame food security and food sovereignty as social determinants of health or upstream medicine. Utilizing Participant Action Research and ethnographic methods, I explore this question by following three themes. First, I examine the composition and intergroup work process of each organization to better understand how these structures impact the way they work. Second, I explore what policies are being promoted and utilized by each organization. Third, I seek to understand the outputs each organization is achieving with the intent to address food insecurity and sovereignty. I conclude that each group addresses food insecurity at a different social level or activity, and as such, all three types of groups are needed to address the complexity involved in achieving local food security. Additionally, I recommend that funding for consistent staffing is needed at all three levels.
Keywords
- food sovereignty,
- food security,
- local food policy councils,
- food deserts,
- agrarian political economy,
- social determinants of health,
- hidden hunger,
- urban agriculture
Disciplines
Publication Date
November 30, 2020
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Field of study
Anthropology
Department
Anthropology
Advisor
Sean Bruna
DOI
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/997/
Citation Information
Jones, Matia, "Ethnography of Urban Food Policy: Increasing Food Sovereignty in Bellingham, Washington" (2020). WWU Graduate School Collection. 997.
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/997
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-SA International License.