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- All Subjects: Food security
- Creators: Adamson, Joni
Description
This dissertation explores how the written word and natural and cultural landscapes entwine to create a place, the process by which Arizona's landscapes affected narratives written about the place and how those narratives created representations of Arizona over time. From before Arizona became a state in 1912 to the day its citizens celebrated one hundred years as a state in 2012, words have played a role in making it the place it is. The literature about Arizona and narratives drawn from its landscapes reveal writers' perceptions, what they believe is important and useful, what motivates or attracts them to the place. Those perceptions translated into words organized in various ways create an image of Arizona for readers. I explore written works taken at twenty-five year intervals--1912 and subsequent twenty-five year anniversaries--synthesizing narratives about Arizona and examining how those representations of the place changed (or did not change). To capture one hundred years of published material, I chose sources from several genres including official state publications, newspapers, novels, poetry, autobiography, journals, federal publications, and the Arizona Highways magazine. I chose sources that would have been available to the reading public, publications that demonstrated a wide readership. In examining the words about Arizona that have been readily available to the English-reading public, the importance of the power of the printed word becomes clear. Arizona became the place it is in the twenty-first century, in part, because people with power--in the federal and state governments, boosters, and business leaders--wrote about it in such a way as to influence growth and tourism sometimes at the expense of minority groups and the environment. Minority groups' narratives in their own words were absent from Arizona's written narrative landscape until the second half of the twentieth century when they began publishing their own stories. The narratives about Arizona changed over time, from literature dominated by boosting and promotion to a body of literature with many layers, many voices. Women, Native American, and Hispanic narratives, and environmentalists' and boosters' words created a more complex representation of Arizona in the twenty-first century, and more accurately reflected its cultural landscape, than the Arizona represented in earlier narratives.
ContributorsEngel-Pearson, Kimberli (Author) / Pyne, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Adamson, Joni (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
ABSTRACT
Much attention has been given to food justice in both academic and activist communities as of late. This project adds to the growing discourse around food justice by using creative works produced by members of the black community as case studies to analyze the relationship between food justice and the criminal justice system in their neighborhoods. In particular, this project examines two unique sources of creative expression from the black community. The first is the novel Been ‘Bout Dat, the story of a young boy Fattz, who is born into the projects of New Orleans and takes to street life in order to provide for his siblings and struggling single mother. Written in prison by Johnny Davis it offers a valuable perspective that is combined with historical context and statistical support to construct an understanding of how concepts of food and criminal justice influence each other. The second source is the lyrical content of several hip-hop songs from rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, Nas, and Young Jeezy. Comparing the content of these works and the lived realities expressed in both brings new and useful insights about food justice and criminal justice as experienced in poor minority communities. Recognizing this relationship may illuminate solutions to food justice issues through criminal justice reform as well as inform fresh efforts at community renewal.
Much attention has been given to food justice in both academic and activist communities as of late. This project adds to the growing discourse around food justice by using creative works produced by members of the black community as case studies to analyze the relationship between food justice and the criminal justice system in their neighborhoods. In particular, this project examines two unique sources of creative expression from the black community. The first is the novel Been ‘Bout Dat, the story of a young boy Fattz, who is born into the projects of New Orleans and takes to street life in order to provide for his siblings and struggling single mother. Written in prison by Johnny Davis it offers a valuable perspective that is combined with historical context and statistical support to construct an understanding of how concepts of food and criminal justice influence each other. The second source is the lyrical content of several hip-hop songs from rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, Nas, and Young Jeezy. Comparing the content of these works and the lived realities expressed in both brings new and useful insights about food justice and criminal justice as experienced in poor minority communities. Recognizing this relationship may illuminate solutions to food justice issues through criminal justice reform as well as inform fresh efforts at community renewal.
ContributorsDennis, Matthew (Author) / Delmont, Matthew (Thesis advisor) / Adamson, Joni (Committee member) / Killsback, Leo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Anthropogenic factors contributing to more frequent and extreme weather-related events are displacing vulnerable populations and increasing the global number of food-insecure climate refugees. As food sovereignty is essential to combating climate change and ensuring sustainable futures – according to the Declaration of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda – it is important to examine accepted practices in the food industry that may threaten the sovereignty of vulnerable groups. The aim of this thesis is to explore two climate fiction novels – Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl – and how they demonstrate the connection between problematic practices in the food industry and lost food sovereignty. I also examine the novels through the lens of international documents such as the 2030 Agenda. Each novel, I argue, contributes to a growing awareness about the importance of protecting first rights to indigenous and local foods and land, or food sovereignty. The environmental humanities, and climate fiction specifically, are also contributing to a better understanding of the detrimental effects that lost sovereignty has on a people’s culture and the future sustainability of the planet. Climate fiction, as these novels illustrate, can provide case studies for understanding the inextricable link between humans and nature and allow people to imagine a better future. Placed within larger contexts that illuminate the current need for global campaigns for food sovereignty and United Nations agendas such as the 2030 Agenda, literature which demonstrates the human relationship to food can be used to enrich and strengthen application of the Agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. Through imagery of seeds and regeneration, Butler and Bacigalupi illuminate the critical role of seed-carriers, or bearers of food knowledge, in intergenerational food education and sustainability. Their novels demonstrate links between environmental injustices and food insecurities – violence and displacement of climate refugees in Parable of the Sower, and biopiracy and food totalitarianism in The Windup Girl – that help readers better understand the potential power of the SDGs for planning food futures.
ContributorsBoth, Natalie (Author) / Adamson, Joni (Thesis advisor) / Brown, Lois (Committee member) / Sadowski-Smith, Claudia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021