From one movement to another? Comparing environmental justice activism and food justice alternative practices

Flaminia Paddeu (1)

1 ENeC - Espaces, Nature et Culture

Food justice activism is generally considered to be an offshoot of environmental justice. We question this lineage based on empirical elements by comparing the two movements in terms of theoretical objectives, daily practices and strategies. Our material comes from the study of two grassroots movements in low-income neighborhoods in the United States – environmental justice in Hunts Point (South Bronx) and food justice in Jefferson-Mack (Detroit) – where we conducted field surveys between 2011 and 2013, interviewing more than sixty stakeholders. We demonstrate how environmental justice activism in the Bronx is the expression of a protest model, involving rallying against polluting infrastructures, whereas food justice alternative practices in Detroit are characterized by the organization of community food security networks. Despite similarities between the two movements, we strongly challenge their “lineage”. Not only do the types of collective action and the catalysts differ markedly, but each of the two movements has evolved relatively independently in the context of an assertion of the food justice movement.

Mots clés: South Bronx; Detroit; food justice; environmental justice; alternative practices; Spatial justice

Domaines: Architecture, aménagement de l'espace; Géographie; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Flaminia Paddeu. From one movement to another? Comparing environmental justice activism and food justice alternative practices. Justice spatiale = Spatial justice, 2016, Food justice and agriculture, 9. ⟨halshs-01507261⟩