I started my research on Food Deserts back in 2009 for my Life in the City undergrad class at Towson University. I'm not sure whether it was my love of food or the wonders of the Internet that allowed me to discover the concept, but I've been compiling corresponding articles and doing research ever since.
Food Deserts, for those new to the concept, is when a community or space lacks access to a supply of fresh, affordable produce (i.e. - a grocery store) and instead is surround by an abundance of cheap, unhealthy food sources (i.e. - fast food places.) Studies have correlated that issues like community disfranchisement, gentrification, and community physical health conditions can be related to a poor diet that comes from living in a Food Desert. Sometimes the reason a certain section of a city falls into squalor is not because of the people living there, but because of the unforeseen consequences of the flight or removal or grocery stores that were the core of a healthy community.
A problem that I have come across in the past is the definition of space in a Food Desert. For a middle class rural Desert, having a grocery store located more than a mile away is not an issue. Many of the individuals in the community would own a car and be able to drive there. For individuals living in a city, whether middle or lower class, having access to a grocery food store that is less than a mile away is a huge factor in your shopping habits. The problem in both areas is spacial, but the configuration and use of space in each dictates certain actions from the occupants of that space. The idea of you are what you eat can be expanded to 'you are what you eat where you are.' Where you live may have more influence on what you eat and what you feel you choose to eat than your class.
I am using this blog as a space for my thoughts, field notes and field work, and a sort of 'live' media ethnography. Whereas anthropology effectively uses print media to distribute knowledge, much of this can seem old even though the topic was new at the time the author was writing it. In this globalized world that we live in, and especially in America, time and space have become exceeding compressed due to the extremely frequent use and dependence on technology. With our reliance on it, technology has gone and created a secondary universe of culture that is ever-changing and unstable. Writing an ethnography on something that happens in the digital world could find itself becoming as out of date as your Twitter update from yesterday. In an attempt to move at the same speed as the digital world, I've created this blog.
Food Deserts are a cultural problem that must be addressed on a national and communal level. If National policy depends on the trickling down on programs and aid, I seek to work from the ground up. (If you are wondering, the United State's first documented study on Food Deserts was in 2009, so there's not really too much policy rolling around upstairs yet.) Communities that live in Food Deserts adapt their way of life to what they have available and become resistant to change. Especially change that would come from an outsider that would tell you how to change your lifestyle without caring about your life. In working with several community groups in Baltimore, I am trying to become a resource and a witness to their movement. Community understanding of the issues at hand and a continuous force of internal sustainability will help programs that are working to have farmer's markets in the area and teach neighbors recipes eliminate Food Deserts.
That would be a great goal, because, let's face it.....we all like food. :)
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