“Food justice” has become nearly a buzzword in North America over the past two decades. Since a handful of community-based organizations began to use the term to describe the goals of their work in the late 1990s and early 2000s, interest in this idea as a way to understand and articulate change has grown, diversified, and some have argued, been coopted. Food justice is a compelling idea, which can seemingly be applied to anything from grassroots youth development to impact investing. With so many actors, from different sectors and walks of life engaged in food justice, what does it really mean? Food Justice Now! offers important perspectives on this question.
To begin, Sbicca reminds us of the structures that make the food system unjust, including institutional racism, neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy; and he briefly recounts histories of social movements that predated the food justice movement: agrarian populism, organic farming, farmworkers and food labor, and Black Power movements. He provides a perspective on the potential roles of scholars in supporting these struggles, noting “[i]t is important for scholars to operate from a theory of social change that is relevant to the food justice movement to navigate the practical implications of these related histories and narratives” (11).
Food Justice Now! goes on to focus on three case studies in California examining how farms or non-profit groups are working on specific issues through a food justice lens. Yet, far from providing only a simple description, Sbicca organizes the case studies around three areas of analysis: carceral politics (an Oakland organization that works to address racialized mass incarceration and the prison pipeline through a restorative justice approach); labor politics (two different perspectives on labor justice in San Diego – one enacted by a mostly-white, “well-educated” group, and the other by a food workers’ labor union, presumably composed mostly of people of color and working class folks); and immigration politics (solidarity actions between farmer-activists and international migrants from Mexico who become farmworkers in the context of US immigration policies, politics, and militarized borders). While some readers may be familiar with these intersections, to have a historical and analytical account of how they tie together through the lens of food justice is helpful in seeing the deeper layers of the work, which reach beyond charity or education.
I offer two constructive critiques. First, Food Justice Now! is about a social movement. As such I would have liked to learn more, from a social movement theory perspective, about specific intersections (or divergences) between the movements and lineages discussed, along the lines of previous analyses (cf. Taylor, 2000) of the environmental justice movement, from which some scholars argue food justice emerged. How does food justice fit into the broader food movement, which is evoked in the book but not thoroughly theorized? At what point in the historical trajectory does this label become relevant, and what harm might be done by placing labels on groups that might not have identified this way (e.g., The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense)? Additionally, how does food justice activism in California relate to that in other places—What divergences might social context create?
My second constructive critique pertains to positionality, in general, and whiteness, in particular. Given that food justice addresses racial inequity as an underlying cause of food injustice, how does the racial identity of the leaders of the groups studied affect both their approaches and efficacy as activists working to address food justice? There is a good discussion of whiteness and the dominant (white) tendency to sidestep racial inequity by focusing on ‘diversity,’ (152), but ought not white dominance to be a theme throughout? While this is not the intended focus of the book, confronting white dominance (and supremacy) is part of racial justice work, making it central to food justice. Additionally, I was curious to learn more about where the author situates himself with respect to scholarship and activism, race and gender, and how these positionalities affected the narrative, the analysis, and the potential enactment of scholarly-solidarity.
Overall, Food Justice Now! is an important contribution to the food studies and food justice literature, and to insights into how social movements are using food as a tool to advance social justice. If we want to realize a more just food system, action will need to be undergirded by a broader understanding of the social justice struggles that precede and co-evolve with the movement.
