Learning and dialogue with Dr. Monica White
Prologue
May 7, 2017. Katie Braun, NURF Co-President
Over the past year, Morgan and I took on the (occasionally overwhelming) task of creating and teaching a student-organized seminar on food ethics. Food ethics is a pretty broad topic, so to break it down into manageable chunks, we organized our class around some major food issues - a week for GMOs, a week for corporate control, a week for sustainability, etc. For each week, we’d dive into the research on that week’s topic, reading articles, watching documentaries, and synthesizing the work of leading researchers on that topic.
When it came time to put together the class on food accessibility, we specifically went looking for activists and researchers based in the Chicago and Midwest region. After reading up on local organizations and food accessibility initiatives, we kept running into the work of Dr. Monica White. She’s an assistant professor of Environmental Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studies Black food system planning in Detroit. Dr. White’s research is really cool, and, based on videos of her speaking on YouTube, she’s also a great lecturer as well. So we decided to email her - with really no expectations of her responding - asking if she’d be interested in coming to Northwestern.
Instead, she enthusiastically said yes! It was a bit too late to bring her in as a guest lecturer for our food ethics class, but that turned out to be a good thing because we could open the event to the entire Northwestern community. So we spent the remainder of Winter Quarter and the first few weeks of Spring Quarter emailing back and forth, getting a contract signed, booking a room, and generally getting ready for Dr. White to arrive. And it ended up being a great event :)
NURF members reached out to other clubs on campus and the EPC department for co-sponsorship, help with advertising, and to collaborate with all NU students who might have been interested in the event. The Buffett Institute for Global Studies also provided space for a lunch for students, professors, and Dr. White to talk more intimately before the more lecture-formatted event in the evening.
Lunch with Dr. White
May 2, 2017. Bailey Smith-Helman and Dorothy Hogg, NURF Sourcing Interns
Last Thursday (April 27), NURF members, professors, and other Northwestern students got to sit down with Dr. Monica White to hear more about her work with urban agriculture in Detroit. One idea we talked about is the concept of food deserts, which is very familiar to anyone interested in the food system, and how the term “food desert” can be problematic. The word “desert,” despite deserts having their own lively ecosystem, implies that nothing is happening in the community. However, there is a lot happening in these communities, and there are often food resources available; they are just lacking healthy food, or there are structural obstacles to individuals obtaining healthy food. The concept of a food desert also focuses on deficits in a community, and Dr. White prefers to look at communities with an asset-based approach. Rather than going into a community and detailing what is missing in terms of organic, local, and healthy food options, she prefers to see what they do have and what is working well. Although people often enter into these communities with good intentions, the deficit approach can be offensive and ineffective. It is important to think about how academic concepts, such as food deserts, may not actually be helpful to the communities they are meant to target.
The lecture/Q&A
May 8, 2017. Moriah Lavey, passionate NURF member
Dr. Monica White visited Northwestern last week to speak to the Northwestern Community about depopulation, disenfranchisement, and resistance to them through self-sustaining communal agriculture. Through her extensive studies of community organizations in Detroit, she was eloquently and passionately able to speak to the goals of these small scale agricultural ventures. These communal spaces are used to foster intimate connections to agriculture, as their ancestors did, as well as provide the community with healthier food options.
White also spoke to the ethics of this type of urban research and understanding. She stated that one must enter a community seeking out what resources they DO have (i.e. community, land), rather than bring negativity through the discussion of shortcomings (i.e. food deserts, poor education), and work with a community to further develop those resources. Using this framework, an outsider may actually aid in community empowerment, rather than partake in imperialist, top-down community development.
Overall, White's presence was energizing and empowering and her well-researched lecture provided the community with a holistic understanding of what some of Detroit's communities are doing to resist disenfranchisement and build a healthy, sustainable sources for their sustenance.
Please be on the lookout for more reflections on NURF events in the next few weeks!
