Matching Items (7)
Description
Residents of the United States increasingly support organic and local food systems. New Social Movement theorists have described alternative agriculture as a social movement that transcends social class. Other scholars have critiqued alternative agriculture for catering to a middle-class, white public. Simultaneously, geographers have identified communities across the United States that struggle with reduced access to healthy fruits and vegetables. In some of these neighborhoods, known as “food deserts,” local groups are redefining an inequitable distribution of healthy food as a social injustice, and they have begun initiatives to practice “food justice.” The overarching research questions of this study are: 1) How do communities become food deserts? 2) How do food justice movements crystallize and communities practice food justice? 3) What are the social outcomes of food justice movements? Using an Ecology of Actors framework, this study analyzes the actors and operational scales of three food justice movements in Phoenix, Arizona. A narrative analysis of historical scholarly materials and other artifacts reveals that, for more than a century, some communities have tried to create minority-operated local food systems. However, they were thwarted by racist policies and market penetration of the conventional US food system. Interviews with residents, garden organizers and food justice advocates living and working in the city create a narrative of the present day struggle for food justice. Results of this work show that contemporary residents describe their foodscape as one of struggle, and carless residents rely upon social networks to access healthy food. Garden organizers and gardeners are creating networks of community gardens, market gardens, and informal farmers’ markets. They are actively transforming their communities’ landscapes with sophisticated garden ecology in an intense urban heat island. However, the movement’s continued success may be threatened. Many new Phoenix-based local food coalitions and national alternative agriculture social movements are now working to alter Phoenix’s foodscape. Composed of well-educated professionals, who have adopted a justice-based language around food, these organizations may unintentionally co-opt the local food justice movements.
ContributorsBleasdale, Thomas (Author) / Harlan, Sharon L (Thesis advisor) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In this three-article dissertation, I explore the history of Western gardens in educational literature as well as the ontologies and epistemologies that underpin contemporary learning in gardens. Through a critical posthumanist and Indigenous scholarship lens, I collaborated with a school garden, a community garden and an indigenous garden to examine onto-epistemologies that permeate the relationships between humans and more-than-humans in gardens, revealing ways of being and knowing that are favored and the ones that are pushed out of gardening experiences, while exploring entryways to non-Western ways of being and learning in the garden.While each article stands on its own, taken together they paint a complex, rich and nuanced picture of more-than-human relationalities that occur in gardens and of human engagement deriving from different ontoepistemological orientations. This research contributes to the existing literature by exploring issues regarding environmental and sustainability education’s (ESE) approach to learning in gardens, specifically the salient role of gardens in ESE’s strategy in attenuating the climate crisis, by examining how gardens are conceptualized, who has agency in gardens, and what knowledges are privileged in gardens as learning spaces.
Contributorsdo Lago e Pretti, Esther (Author) / Silova, Iveta (Thesis advisor) / Koro, Mika (Committee member) / Weinberg, Andrea (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This project focuses on building capacity for the long-term viability of the garden based learning program at Martin Luther King Early Childhood Center through cultivating relationships with local organizations and businesses. Building upon Matthew Waldman’s 2018 MSUS project work with this school and The Farm at South Mountain, this project’s purpose was to explore ways to integrate the greater school community and allow them to share their vision for an outdoor community space.
The intervention tool used to engineer this collaborative mindset was individual square foot garden boxes that each child in the 2019 student body was able to decorate and take home.
As a tangible piece of this Culminating Experience, I have installed a pollinator garden that has been registered with Monarch Waystation Program. This space serves as a celebration of the school’s mascot and provides a totem for the collective action of the community.
With the onset of COVID-19 and the implementation of local, state and federal guidelines, the school has been closed since March and has curtailed the anticipated deliverables.
The intervention tool used to engineer this collaborative mindset was individual square foot garden boxes that each child in the 2019 student body was able to decorate and take home.
As a tangible piece of this Culminating Experience, I have installed a pollinator garden that has been registered with Monarch Waystation Program. This space serves as a celebration of the school’s mascot and provides a totem for the collective action of the community.
With the onset of COVID-19 and the implementation of local, state and federal guidelines, the school has been closed since March and has curtailed the anticipated deliverables.
ContributorsSchmitt, Christina (Writer of accompanying material)
Created2020-05-13
Description
In the Spring of 2021, I had an internship with Butterfly Wonderland, where I worked in their conservatory and learned about the ecological relationship between butterflies and plants. As part of my internship, I encouraged guests to learn more about gardening for pollinators. That experience inspired me to complete a creative project in which I would design a butterfly garden of my own that would highlight wildlife benefits and be accessible to people like myself, who do not have their own gardens and don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on gardening supplies.
In collaboration with Dr. Gwen Iacona and Liz Makings (director and second committee member respectively), I planted accessible gardens. By “accessible”, I mean that the gardens were affordable (less than $100 total), included free/upcycled materials wherever possible, and are easily replicable. For my project, I made ‘prototypes’ of the gardens by using freely available seeds and soil sources, germinating those seeds in the ASU Greenhouses, and documenting my process so that it could be shared. Freely available seeds and other materials came from a variety of places including the ASU seed library, local Free Little Libraries, donations, as well as purchases from on campus fundraisers. The germination and growth of seeds in the ASU greenhouse took place over the course of several months in the fall and winter. That documentation has taken on several forms, including an informational pamphlet about wildlife gardening and flyers specific to locally available plant seeds. I find this to be very important because my end goal was to create something that other students or people in our community can use in a practical way. I wanted to create something that will bring gardening into the homes of people who didn’t think they were able to participate in it.
ContributorsBernat, Isabella (Author) / Iacona, Gwen (Thesis director) / Makings, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
The focus of /bəˈlôNG/ is to go beyond diversity and inclusion in fashion and instead to create a sense of belonging in the industry. Historically, fashion has been very discriminatory and I want to do my part to change this while inspiring others to do the same. This collection is inspired by gardens as they represent a lovely, serene oasis in a world full of chaos, which is something we could all use in our day-to-day lives. Within gardens are a variety of different flowers all deemed beautiful, despite being different colors, types, or having some flaws.
ContributorsGilsdorf, Megan (Author) / de'Shay, Joanna (Thesis director) / Misquadace, Wanesia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Research shows having community gardens in schools can decrease student stress, decrease negative emotions, give students a sense of calmness, etc. This project explores why a community garden is beneficial and how to start a community garden. This project focuses on feasibility at Basis Oro Valley, but could be modified to fit any school. The thesis is comprised of a manual that includes different plants and produce to be included in the garden, lesson plans for educators to use to enhance the overall educational experience and bring the garden into the classroom, bonus materials, different garden resources, and a literature review for students and educators to use as further reading.
ContributorsFetkenhour, Casey (Author) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Thesis director) / Alevy, Shea (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
"Community and Composting in Victory Acres” implemented a pilot composting program for a local neighborhood in an effort to increase community cohesion. Victory Acres is a low-income, culturally diverse neighborhood located in Tempe that used to have easier access to the Escalante Community Center before the 101 freeway divided the community. Residents of the neighborhoods surrounding ECC do not have access to the Escalante Community Garden except on Community Harvest Days twice a month. The goal of the project was to reconnect broken ties to the ECG through a neighborhood composting service. Through composting, residents could directly benefit from the community garden’s composting capabilities while encouraging a more sustainable method for dealing with food waste. The composting pilot project in Victory Acres was used as a way to mitigate the greenhouse gases emanating from food waste along with other neighborhood issues. The project would encourage aspects of community cohesion, sustainability, and happiness. By the completion of the project, composting in the neighborhood could continue through increased access to the Escalante Community Center Garden. An assessment via survey responses was made on improvements in perceived community connectedness, sustainability, and happiness. The pilot was unsuccessful in gaining a large client base for composting participation, but it was successful in exploring challenges and barriers to implementation of projects in Victory Acres. Several intervention points were explored, several lessons were learned from successful and unsuccessful engagement techniques, and opportunities arose for further future research.
ContributorsKiefer, Alyssa (Author) / Cloutier, Scott (Contributor) / Prosser, Paul (Contributor)
Created2017-04-28