EBOOK
Beyond the Kale
Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City
Kristin ReynoldsSeries: Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation5
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About
Urban agriculture is increasingly considered an important part of creating just and sustainable cities. Yet the benefits that many people attribute to urban agriculture-fresh food, green space, educational opportunities-can mask structural inequities, thereby making political transformation harder to achieve. Realizing social and environmental justice requires moving beyond food production to address deeper issues such as structural racism, gender inequity, and economic disparities. Beyond the Kale argues that urban agricultural projects focused explicitly on dismantling oppressive systems have the greatest potential to achieve substantive social change.
Through in-depth interviews and public forums with some of New York City's most prominent urban agriculture activists and supporters, Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen illustrate how some urban farmers and gardeners not only grow healthy food for their communities but also use their activities and spaces to disrupt the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity. Addressing a significant gap in the urban agriculture literature, Beyond the Kale prioritizes the voices of people of color and women-activists and leaders whose strategies have often been underrepresented within the urban agriculture movement-and it examines the roles of scholarship in advancing social justice initiatives.
Through in-depth interviews and public forums with some of New York City's most prominent urban agriculture activists and supporters, Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen illustrate how some urban farmers and gardeners not only grow healthy food for their communities but also use their activities and spaces to disrupt the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity. Addressing a significant gap in the urban agriculture literature, Beyond the Kale prioritizes the voices of people of color and women-activists and leaders whose strategies have often been underrepresented within the urban agriculture movement-and it examines the roles of scholarship in advancing social justice initiatives.
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Reviews
"Challenging the increasingly mainstream view of urban agriculture as an extension of the new food movement that consists of young, middle-class white 'homesteaders' and 'pioneers,' Nevin Cohen and Kristin Reynolds identify how communities of color have their own rich history and contemporary forms of an urban agriculture directly linked to a deeper desire to bring about community change and socia
Robert Gottlieb, coauthor of Food Justice
"Beyond past wars, the book also considers the plight and conditions of refugees, as well as the homeless. It is those layers of exploration that make The Broken Country so compelling, its argument summarized in the book's subtitle: On Trauma, A Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam. Rekdal explores trauma theory and narrative theory and brain science, as well as her own history as the daugh
Julie Guthman, author of Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism
"The existence of race- and class-based disparities among farming and gardening groups is nothing new. What is new is Reynolds and Cohen's meticulous, critical urban agriculture scholarship and activist analysis focused on New York City urban agriculture programs that advance social justice goals and are led by people of color and first-generation immigrants from regions of the Global South, with
Professor Julian Agyeman, author of Introducing Just Sustainabilities