Dr. David Meek publishes “Critical Food Systems Education and the Question of Race”

Dr. David Meek is co-author with R. Tarlau on “Critical food systems education and the question of race” in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.

Meek, D., & Tarlau, R. (2015). Critical food systems education and the question of race. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2015.054.021

Abstract:
Studies of food systems education have largely avoided questions concerning race. We argue that food systems education is in need of a critical intervention. In this commentary, we propose critical food systems education (CFSE) as a theoretical framework, set of pedagogies, and vision for policy that moves beyond teaching students about the food system, and helps them realize their potential to structurally transform it through collective action. The CFSE perspective is theoretically grounded in food justice, food sovereignty, political agroecology, and critical pedagogy. The CFSE approach is not merely theoretical, but arises from the examples of grassroots social movements throughout the world that have developed radical forms of food systems education. We highlight this approach using the example of the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). The MST opposes a racialized discourse of the “peasantry” as backwards and ignorant. The movement’s leaders reject a vision of education that reproduces white modernity, and support a vision that advances radical agroecological education programs that train students to be political subjects capable of creating a socially and environmentally equitable food system. The example of the MST underscores the potential of CFSE as a corrective for the food systems education’s racialized assumptions.