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Infrastructure Apartheid to Liberatory Infrastructures Transcript

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0:00:06.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Thinking about infrastructure apartheid as systemic dehumanization through material and social entities that are observed, felt, and lived across racial, economic, and geographic spatialization. Thinking about infrastructure as it is established, it is therefore embedded through existing and interlocking systems of domination, oppression, and dehumanization. Challenging this notion of infrastructure being transparent to those who are most affected by its presence, whether positively or negatively, it is seldom, if ever, transparent. Its links with conventions of practice is the very thing that reproduces harm, violence, and warfare when embodying these standards that were built by and for the dominant majority through historical legacies of colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, all of the isms can go on and on and on. And this idea becomes visible upon breakdown.

0:00:54.2 Tom Llewellyn: Welcome back to another episode of Cities@Tufts, brought to you by Shareable and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University with support from the Barr and Schiff Foundations. Today’s show features a lecture from Dr. Maya Carrasquillo, who discusses infrastructure apartheid to liberatory infrastructures. In addition to this podcast, the video, transcript, and graphic recordings are available on our website. Just click the link in the show notes. And now, here’s the host of Cities@Tufts, Professor Julian Agyeman.

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0:01:40.2 Julian Agyeman: Welcome to our Cities@Tufts virtual colloquium. I’m Professor Julian Agyeman, and together with my research assistants, Deandra Boyle and Mariam Bakari, and our partners Shareable and the Barr Foundation, we organize Cities@Tufts as a cross-disciplinary academic initiative, which recognizes Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning, and sustainability issues. I’d like to acknowledge, and we would all like to acknowledge that Tufts University’s Medford campus is located on Colonized Wampanoag and Massachusetts traditional territory. We are delighted to host today Dr. Maya Carrasquillo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Principal Investigator of the Liberatory Infrastructures Lab, or LIL, at the University of California, Berkeley. LIL’s mission is to develop systems of critical infrastructure that support liberation and restorative justice for all, particularly of historically under-resourced and historically marginalized communities.

0:02:42.7 Julian Agyeman: LIL is committed to evaluating, designing, and implementing just and liberatory critical infrastructure for current and future generations. Dr. Carrasquillo holds a BS in Environmental Engineering and a minor in History from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida. Her research has primarily studied the intersections of stormwater management, environmental justice, and complex hydro-social systems. I like that complex idea, hydro-social. Particularly focusing on historically underserved communities to develop a conceptual framework for equitable decision making. Maya, a Zoom-tastic welcome to Cities@Tufts. Over to you.

0:03:29.3 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Good, I guess, afternoon for everyone joining on the East Coast. I’m West Coast time, so it’s still morning for me. I’m so excited to be here. And I have a lot of slides to get through, so I’m going to share screen and jump right in. But yeah, really looking forward to being here to present today, and yeah, sharing this space with you all. Just a second. All right, are you seeing my slides okay? Hearing no objections, I’m going to assume that everyone can see. Well, yes, thank you again for that introduction, Julian. Again, really excited to be here, and thank you for the invitation to present this evolving work and framework for my research and my group’s, my lab’s research. So yeah, the title, Infrastructure Apartheid to Liberatory Infrastructures. All right, so title, Liberatory Infrastructures, Infrastructure Apartheid. I’m gonna walk through kind of three main buckets for the presentation today. I wanna give you a little bit of introduction to me, my orientation for this work. As I mentioned, this is an evolving and a constant area of thinking of scholarship for me and my lab.

0:04:45.8 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so I want to kind of walk you through that intellectual journey a bit today and share that evolution of where the work started. And as we start to think more about what does liberatory infrastructures, what can it look like, what does it look like, how are we thinking about it, sharing a bit about some of the work that my lab group is doing today. So motivation… I like to start with the scripture that really hits on this idea of what it looks like to actually care for our brothers and sisters. So it says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. Truly, I tell you, whatever you did, for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you also did for me.” So this is one of the scriptures that really grounds a lot of the work. And even as we start to think about what does liberation mean and caring for others and kind of challenging ideas of dehumanization that I’ll get into a little bit more.

0:05:49.6 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Yeah, this really kind of grounds a lot of my thinking in this work. So you heard the bio. I’ll jump through the slide pretty quickly, but a little bit about me. As Julian mentioned, I graduated, did my BS in environmental engineering at Georgia Tech. Originally from upstate New York. So I am very familiar with part of the country that you all are in. And I apologize right now for I’m assuming what is probably pretty frigid weather in Boston. I am the youngest of three siblings. This is a picture of my mom and my sister. We actually all graduated at the same time when I finished my bachelor’s. As I mentioned, did my bachelor’s at Georgia Tech and was involved very actively with organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers, our African-American Student Union. And it was in these spaces that I really began to think about kind of challenging what I saw as normative practice in engineering.

0:06:42.7 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: My background as an environmental engineer and kind of sitting in this interesting space as engineering undergrad, but also in what is probably now to date the largest and still predominantly Black city in the US and seeing maybe the disconnect between this very prominent PWI in the middle of Atlanta and the infrastructure that as a campus we were building that was harming our neighbors next door. And so really began thinking about what does it look like to actually integrate community engaged practices in engineering more concretely. So I went to do my PhD in environmental engineering at the University of South Florida. From my PhD, I jumped into consulting. I did a brief stint in consulting before joining faculty here in civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley. In my spare time, whatever that actually looks like, I also lead outreach for my local church and also sermon worship as well. And as I believe, Deandra, I am getting married in less than two months. So very exciting and busy, but full season for me.

0:07:51.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: A little more context. So I come from a family of activists and educators. And I like to highlight this because I think, again, as you understand my position and how I approach this work and even what motivates it, highlighting my family’s history and particularly the women in my family and the legacy of activism and scholarship and that tradition that they hold, I really believe is a huge part of why I am and have always gravitated towards this work myself. So from left to right in this picture is my great aunt Jackie, my great great, great grandmother Ola, my great, great, great grandmother Nori, my great grandmother Elizabeth, and my late grandmother Elizabeth as well. In particular, I like to highlight some of the work of my great grandmother Elizabeth, who I bear her name through my middle name and will also be taking her last name as well. But my great grandmother in particular was an activist and educator in Harlem, was actively involved with March of Dimes, held leadership positions with Washington Heights, the Democratic Club.

0:09:06.2 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so, again, coming from this tradition of activism and education and community involvement has very much so driven so much of the work that I do. And it is because of the women who have preceded me in my own life that I am where I am today. So let’s dig into the work. How it started. So before we jump in, again, I’m an engineer. I know that the term infrastructure is very loaded. And when we say it, people may have different understandings of what that means. So I want to level set a bit before we jump into the rest of the conversation to make sure that when I say infrastructure, we’re operating from the same understanding. And again, because I come from the tradition of engineering, a lot of definitions will often focus on basic services. This definition highlights primary, secondary, and tertiary productive activities. We can debate what productive actually means, but in terms of functionality in a society. So in its wider sense, it embraces all public services from law and order through education and public health to transportation, communications, and water supply.

0:10:13.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Infrastructure can include all essential systems and facilities that allow the smooth flow of an economy’s day-to-day activities and enhance people’s standard of living. It includes basic facilities, excuse me, such as roads, water, supply, electricity, telecommunications. So most definitions that you’ll see of infrastructure, again, coming from my tradition, civil and environmental engineering, often refers to built and material infrastructure systems. What’s often excluded from even our orientation as a field when we think about infrastructure is social infrastructure. In the classes I teach, I like to ground it with this perspective. And so we think about social infrastructure, it’s built, but also the non-built, non-material spaces that can include libraries, schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools. Things that are vital parts of social infrastructure, but really vital parts of society and the ability for us to gather and operate from person to person.

0:11:18.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So within our field and our tradition, there are accepted characteristics of infrastructure. I’m going through this slide because it’s going to come back up later, but some key points to highlight on this slide is that infrastructure, as kind of just spoke about, it can include social, so it’s not just material entities. It’s embedded, so it exists within established networks and relationships. It’s often understood to be transparent, which again is an idea that we’re going to come back to later. So this idea that when it’s being used, it’s often not noticed or we don’t think about it. So here in the US, I’m sure everybody already today has turned on tap water. We’re very privileged to have that opportunity, but you do it so subconsciously at this point. It’s a daily part of your routine. You don’t actively think about it. It’s there. We use it on a regular basis. Toilets can be included. I’m jumping to all the water infrastructure ’cause I am a water engineer by training, but you get the idea that these are systems that we use but don’t actively think about.

0:12:19.8 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Links with conventions of practice, embodiment of standards. Again, we’re gonna come back to all of these later. The last one is that it becomes visible upon breakdown. So again, this idea that a lot of infrastructural work happens in the background and it’s not until it’s necessarily broken or no longer functioning as intended that it’s noticeable. So again, these are accepted characteristics of infrastructure. Now in my research, we kind of characterize critical infrastructure. I have a different working definition of critical infrastructure than the Department of Homeland Security, but on this slide highlights six categories or six sectors of critical infrastructure as defined by Department of Homeland Security, particularly as it relates to matters of national security. Within this, we’re not gonna spend too much time on this slide, but we can understand that defining an infrastructure is a political act that focuses attention on certain aspects of infrastructure while ignoring others. So this kind of jumps into the evolution of my thinking.

0:13:19.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Again, I am situated in engineering and so much of what we talk about when we think about infrastructure is in built material systems. I’m gonna spend the next few minutes talking about the evolution of my own thinking in my scholarship and how it’s shifted from traditions of civil environments engineering to thinking about infrastructure and critical infrastructure broadly, and this distinction between infrastructure deserts and what’s the title of the talk was called, Infrastructure Apartheid. So this is a picture of what was formerly the largest encampment in northern California called Wood Street Commons. So situated just outside of Interstate 80 in Oakland, in West Oakland in particular, Wood Street Commons housed, I believe, around 450 or so houseless individuals for several years. So it was not only just the largest encampment in northern California, but also the longest standing.

0:14:25.2 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Living in the Bay Area and moving to the Bay Area, I think what became so striking to me was the extent of houselessness and really began thinking about infrastructure as it related to persons experiencing houselessness. And that kind of sparked a lot of the thinking originally around what was, what I was calling infrastructure deserts. This idea that our infrastructure, particularly in the US, is built on grid systems, whether that’s water, whether that’s energy, what we consider to be some of these critical infrastructures that people depend on for their day-to-day lives are so grid dependent. And so the question began to emerge that if you are not connected traditionally to one of these grids, how do you access food, water, energy? Again, what we consider to be basic needs infrastructure. Began thinking about this in the context of these contemporary policies where we are with the current administration.

0:15:28.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So between Justice40, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and so much of what we’ve seen actually emerged federally around thinking more critically about environmental justice and particularly addressing and providing services for those or funding for those who are considered to be the 40% most marginalized, underserved, disadvantaged, all the language that the White House and this administration has used across federal agencies. But again, as I began thinking more and more about this challenge, this very real challenge of houselessness in the Bay Area, just how widespread it is, still began thinking about even some of the policies, the language that were being used. And with these new policies and funding, although still focusing on justice more explicitly, there’s still a question of who is still not included and how we plan, design, construct and repair our infrastructure systems.

0:16:26.6 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Again, getting back to this idea that our infrastructure is so grid dependent. And so as a result, there are people, if you’re disconnected from the grid, you’re disconnected from these services. And so then how do you get it? So this kind of began the thinking around infrastructure deserts. The date only found one actual working definition. This is out of a team funded NSF project out of Texas Southern University. But so they define infrastructure deserts as low income neighborhoods with highly deficient infrastructure, including street tree canopy, sidewalk, food access, medical service access, and our most prevalent deficient infrastructure types across the city. So again, this comes out of a project based out of Texas Southern and really began thinking about what does this definition include? What does this definition not include? And I was thinking about in the Bay Area, kind of shifted it a little bit.

0:17:26.2 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So not just focusing on low income neighborhoods, but infrastructure deserts are more broadly places within these infrastructure grids, as we’ve talked about, where segments of the population are either limited in access or completely disconnected from basic infrastructure, such as food, energy, water, and housing. And this can extend beyond these, but again, thinking critical needs infrastructure. So again, original thinking and how our group was beginning to think about this was kind of bucketed into these three categories. So what is very, very common in this space of EJ social justice work, even in engineering tradition, low income and racially marginalized communities. I mentioned what motivated much of this thinking was the question of infrastructure and service provision for people experiencing houselessness. And then really began thinking about this more broadly, again, if connected to the grid. So if you’re someone experiencing houselessness, but then also the question of what if you’re incarcerated, what does that look like? And this can also extend to communities that may be in unincorporated areas of a city or in the county. So they don’t have direct access to city services, but their services come from the county. And so even that creates a disparity.

0:18:43.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So again, recognizing that even within spaces that are already hyper-connected, there’s still significant segments of the population that don’t have access to these basic needs. And so starting with the first one, and this is again where much of my previous and original research kind of started thinking about this from the context of lower income, and racially marginalized communities. So I wanna bring us to East Tampa, Florida. I did my PhD at the University of South Florida, and much of my previous research focused and worked alongside residents in this community, East Tampa for a few characterization information is a community [0:19:27.5] ____ area, so under Florida Sunshine Law is an area that is explicitly listed as a blighted community in need of economic redevelopment, and so East Tampa in 2004 became designated as a community redevelopment area or CRA. Still remains the largest CRA in the State of Florida. Not unlike a lot of communities that experience environmental injustice, it’s located between two major highways that cut between Tampa, so I-275, that goes north and south on its western border, and I-4, which is the main highway that’ll take you to Orlando from Tampa along that southern border.

0:20:12.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so, as you can imagine, East Tampa is situated within these two highways, has experienced historical challenges around environmental injustice from air quality, transportation and traffic, things of that nature. One of the things that after spending many, many years working with residents in the community, the thing that kept coming up, particularly around stormwater was, why is it that we have the largest or the most stormwater ponds compared to any other community in the City of Tampa? And then the follow-up question was, okay, we have the largest number of stormwater ponds. Why do they look this way? They were considered to be eyesores for many of the residents that live in East Tampa, and so this kind of began the thinking around, okay, well, this is a pain point for residents here, let’s dig into the history, let’s understand why it is that stormwater was built the way it was, stormwater infrastructure, excuse me, was built the way it was in East Tampa. How does this, again, compare to the rest of the city? What were the decision points that led to this observation that we now see as stormwater being eyesores and the largest number of stormwater ponds in this particular community.

0:21:25.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So just to give you a snapshot, this was a picture that was taken in 2018, so a few years old, but still pretty characteristic of what we would see when we would go around and do an assessment of stormwater ponds in East Tampa. So this notion of these stormwater ponds being eyesores, especially when located in residential areas, which is where the majority of the ponds were, If someone steps outside of their home, they see large ponds, steep slopes, fencing and depending on time of year, a lot of algae growth. And so this kind of characterized a lot of what became the pain point and the source of pain, but again, still that question of what is the history, why are these ponds built this way? And those from the engineering would argue, okay, there were a lot of technical decisions that went into this decision, but as I’m sure this audience knows, that’s not always the case, or there’s still things that lead to decisions being what they are. So in East Tampa’s case, there were a number of decisions that went into it. Part of the research was doing interviews with residents and management stakeholders between the city and also within the community. And so one of the things that came out of it was the rich history in East Tampa.

0:22:45.2 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: This quote highlights that people tend to think that there’s no buy-in to the community, but that’s not true, there’s a rich, rich history in East Tampa. We had a hospital, at one point a lot of nursing homes that are still in East Tampa, and 22nd Street, which is one of the main through Streets, had a large number of businesses and still does today, and becomes one of the main attraction point for people when they come in and out of the community. So with stormwater ponds being a particular pain point for residents, the residents came up with a solution because they are CRA, they had access to city resources, and so the residents of East Tampa decided, hey, we wanna revitalize these ponds, we want them to be spaces of attraction, we want them to be places where we can take pride in our own neighborhoods. So, shifting forward a few years, residents decided to invest money in revitalizing four of these storm water ponds. These were large beautification efforts, millions of dollars went into each revitalization project. Pictured here are several of the leaders at the time, the then Tampa Mayor Pamela Iorio is pictured here with one of the community leaders and also one of the decision makers at the time on the CRA board, Bishop Thomas Scott.

0:24:02.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And in this picture where it says Robert L. Cole, Sr. Community Lake, it’s a renaming of the lakes or the ponds from ponds to lakes, so that it could also be not just a space of attraction, but a place that actually honor the legacy of leaders in the community and so pictured here is also Robert L. Cole himself, who the pond was named after. So after this particular pond was revitalized, this is a snapshot of what it looked like after the revitalization effort, so you can see some of the physical infrastructure that was put in. They have is double decker gazebo, there’s actually two that sit on a pond, the decorated rain barrel, and even a sign of better health of the pond itself is the wildlife that’s present. And so this is again, just a snapshot, but really what this project uncovered was the legacy of history and leadership in the decision-making processes, and this question that kind of sparked the research of why is it that our stormwater looks the way it looks. Why is our system built the way it’s built? And one of the things that came out with the interviews with the city in particular was what leads to this idea of infrastructural violence. And so in this tradition, before we jump even to infrastructure apartheid, there’s this legacy tradition of understanding infrastructure from the infrastructural violence comes out of anthropology traditions.

0:25:31.7 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so we understand infrastructure, again, is not just a material embodiment of violence, structural or otherwise, but often it’s instrumental medium in so far as the material organization in form of a landscape, not only reflect but also reinforce social orders, thereby becoming a contributing factor to reoccurring forms of harm. It is the collectively held nature of infrastructure that makes it such a powerful site for not just thinking about society’s responsibility to itself and to each of its members, but also for identifying those who undermine this responsibility about how to build more just cities. Infrastructural violence, again, comes out of this orientation of anthropology, and I stand for this idea that in some cases, official disregard for the urban poor is fundamentally illustrated by inequitable access to basic services and the planning, governance and decision-making processes that sit behind infrastructure provision. These decision-making processes are embedded across multiple layers of governments, agencies and actors in a way that impedes accountability to the public and obscures the responsibility of a state.

0:26:43.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So again, this comes out of anthropology. So Rogers and O’Neill published this paper and then had a whole call for papers specifically around this topic, but Rogers and O’Neill referred to this phenomenon as infrastructural violence. It’s derived through the concepts of infrastructural power by man, emphasizing institutional regulation of society by elites, infrastructural violence also links up with infrastructural warfare coined by Graham producing infrastructure provision that induces human suffering. So under this tradition of infrastructure violence, characterized as either active or passive, so active infrastructural violence speaks to the conscious development of infrastructure to regulate normative social and territorial relations, articulations of infrastructure that are designed to be violent whether in their implementation or in their functioning, and in particular for it to be characterized as active infrastructural violence, it implies a clear intent to induce harm.

0:27:46.9 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Now, passive infrastructural violence is where the socially harmful effects derived from infrastructure’s limitations or omissions rather than its direct consequences, so oftentimes, especially in engineering, we think of this as unintended consequences in particular. So Rogers and O’Neill also state that the concept of infrastructural violence shifts our perceptions, excuse me, from the conventional understanding of infrastructure as material and technical urban systems to infrastructure as social technical regimes. So, infrastructural violence occurs when residents are either excluded from essential infrastructure, such as water and sanitation services by acts of displacement or inadequate infrastructure provisioning. Both denial and exclusion cause human suffering. And so infrastructural violence also takes place through articulations of infrastructure that are designed to be violent. So we are gonna pause here and think this tradition of infrastructural violence, and I teach on this topic, both to grad students and undergrads, and this class in particular, this semester really began thinking and challenging this notion of, okay, well, why does it have to be categorized? And is it maybe harmful to try to categorize infrastructure as either passive or violent?

0:29:06.7 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: I tend to agree with their thinking on this, and so I wanna get us to think about why is infrastructural violence enough? And the questions that I’ve asked, those question that my students have asked, are thinking about a solution, and are we absolving ourselves and each other from collective responsibility by reducing the articulation of harm to more individualized acts of violence rather than systemically induce? So when we start to even think about how we characterize and define infrastructural violence as either passive or active, how do you determine if someone intended to cause harm, and even as we think about it in terms of individualized acts of racism, does intent negate impact? And I think where we start to dig into this understanding of impact regardless of intent, violent and characterizing infrastructure as violent, in my opinion, I think becomes more insufficient to actually characterize what’s really happening and where our practices have been designed to not only induced harm, but dehumanization. So infrastructure apartheid and thinking about it from this orientation comes from the tradition and maybe some of the language that’s used in a couple other spaces.

0:30:27.7 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So food apartheid and I have to give a shout out to Julian because he actually was the first person to challenge my framing from infrastructure deserts and to really begin thinking about infrastructure apartheid. And so food apartheid coined by Karen Washington, this quote from her says, “When we talk about food apartheid, the reason why we bring it up is because food desert doesn’t cut it, food desert doesn’t open up the conversation that we need to have when it comes to race, when it comes to inequality, when it comes to so much.” So food desert is defined by USDA as a low-income census tract where either a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or a large grocery store. The term is inadequate because the term implies that a lack of affordable and fresh foods is just a geographic problem. The word desert makes it seem like these communities are lacking when they are actually filled with life, and then the term makes the problem of food access and security seem like a natural phenomenon and absolves responsibility.

0:31:28.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: There’s also the framing of eco-apartheid, which was first coined by Van Jones in 2007. So eco-apartheid defines a situation which White and affluent communities reap the tremendous benefits of clean and green economic development, while communities of color fall further behind in a state of eco-apartheid benefits of the new economic activity that the green wave generates will bypass the very communities most in need of new investment, new jobs, and a better environmental stewardship. So this is the original quote from Van Jones. A colleague and friend of mine, Dr. Antwi Akom extended this definition a bit further and he quotes saying, “Although powerful Jones’s definition of eco-apartheid’s constructed as if it were a socio-economic phenomenon, that could happen to communities of color in the future, rather than an ecological component of structural racialization that began in the past is happening in the present and is informing the future.” So an eco-apartheid approach helps to illuminate the ways in which historical legacies, individual structures and institutions work together to distribute material and symbolic advantages and disadvantages along racial lines.

0:32:47.2 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: I wanna revisit this slide. These are accepted characteristics of infrastructure that we spoke about a little earlier. So as a reminder or a refresher, these characteristics include infrastructure is not just material entities as embedded as transparent, they link with conventions of practice, embodiment of standards and become visible upon whenever we visit the slide, because this kind of spurred a lot of the thinking and maybe some of the challenging about framing…

0:33:20.0 Julian Agyeman: Hi, Maya, you’ve frozen. Maya, you’re back.

0:33:24.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: I’ll take it from the top of the slide ’cause I think that’s maybe where I got cut off. So just to reiterate, thinking about infrastructural apartheid, as systemic dehumanization through material and social entities that are observed, felt and lived across racial, economic and geographic spatialization, if we kinda go through the characteristics of the accepted characteristics of infrastructure, thinking about infrastructure as it is established, it is therefore embedded through existing and interlocking systems of domination, oppression and dehumanization, challenging this notion of infrastructure being transparent to those who are most affected by its presence, whether positively or negatively, it is seldom if ever transparent. Its links with conventions of practice is the very thing that reproduces harm, violence and warfare when embodying these standards that were built by and for the dominant majority through historically, colonialism imperialism, racism, sexism, all of the isms can go on and on and on. And this idea of it becomes visible upon breakdown. Its breakdown, I would argue, is perpetually visible in experience because it is a broken system built on broken standards and conventions of practice. And so again, as we kind of lean into this tradition of thinking about infrastructure from an apartheid understanding rather than one that is violent, it removes this idea that with different actions, the outcomes can be shifted.

0:34:55.3 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: I think when we say violence, it puts too much onus on individual decision makers and decision making, and once we start to… To a broader understanding, even if originally intended with this infrastructural violence framing to one of apartheid, I think it actually better characterizes… I guess I had it on the next slide, the legacy of understanding of infrastructure through violence and warfare speaks more to the effects of the system and how we experience it rather than what causes our experiences with the system to be hurt and our responses to the system to be one of outrage. So again, this is my ever-evolving thinking of this topic, it’s quite interesting, situated, being situated in an engineering department and approach in this way with this vantage point. And happy to share more about that if you have any additional questions. So characterized structural apartheid, how we’re thinking about it. Where do we go from here? In the words of Dr. MLK. So really just wanted to spend the last few minutes with you all to share a little bit about my research lab, as Julian mentioned in her bio.

0:36:16.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: We are the Liberatory Infrastructures Lab, originally changed the name from Jedi lab to Liberatory Infrastructures because I thought Liberatory Infrastructures better characterize what we are striving towards, this idea of liberation, even pushing beyond just justice, for us to really think about what does it look like to build on a foundation of love, liberation and restoration, particularly for those who have been historically subjected to under-resource and marginalization across legacy and time. So our works kind of spans these four application areas, if you will. So I’ve mentioned before food, energy, water, more recently, and I guess by default of me being in engineering data science just happens to be one of the major areas that our work is also spanning to, which is not a space I thought I would end up in, but research always takes you in unique ways and in different pathways. So all of our work is community-grounded, we have very rich partnerships, I’ll go through a few examples and some of the projects that we’re working on within the same thinking of apartheid characterization of infrastructure and recognizing that a systems theory approach is actually what helps to situate it.

0:37:36.9 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: We engage in the practice of systems thinking and analysis across all of our projects, which helps to frame a lot of the theory and frameworks that we use to really ground our scholarship, especially with engineering. And then thinking about what this looks like in translation, so beyond just the academy, how does this translate to practice and policy and the broader education of engineers as well. So this is my lab, love to highlight them. I think it’s not just about the work that we’re doing, but who is doing the work and getting a chance to create space for a lab that is predominantly women of color is really what motivates a lot of this work. And probably unsurprisingly, a lot of the thinking and the framing of the work as well.

0:38:24.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so it’s such a joy to be able to work with a large group of women of color in engineering and across campus who are thinking about this work with a very just focus. So just to highlight, I’m gonna go through three projects pretty quickly. So probably the closest project that is aligned with previous work that I highlighted is this Green Stormwater Infrastructure by and for Communities. It’s funded by EPA’s Water Quality Improvement Fund, which is an interesting grant to be on as an academic because it is not a research grant. But it also, it opened up the door to work with some really great partners in the Bay Area. So San Francisco Estuary Partnership, two community organizations based in Richmond East Oakland, respectively, Urban Tilth and Hood Planning Group.

0:39:09.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And then the Research Center, San Francisco Estuary Institute and our lab and a very large and multi-faceted project. But really the idea, and particularly from our vantage point is, as Engineers, we bring a unique perspective. And as we think about Green Stormwater Infrastructure beyond planning, this really is an implementation, design and implementation-based project. And so we’re really trying to challenge how do we actually think about what it looks like to incorporate community perspectives and standards into design criteria for Green Stormwater Infrastructure. And so again, very multi-faceted project. The goal coming out of this, particularly for the City of Richmond and Oakland over the next four years, is to develop this community-led neighborhood GSI plan, and hopefully lead to some revitalization and/or implementation projects between both of these communities, respectively.

0:40:03.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: I’m really excited to highlight this project. So my most senior PhD student, Bhavisha Kalyan, is finishing up her work and really situated it within the community of Newark alongside an activist group, the Newark Water Coalition. Her work started with this idea, and similarly thinking about answering the question that the community organization was posing. So in this case, it was, where is lead and how are we being exposed to it? And so through this process, she… Oops. Wrong direction. Here we go. So through this process, alongside the Newark Water Coalition, they established and they developed a mobile lead testing unit, went around to, I believe it was about 350 households, testing water, paint, soil, and dust samples across the city of Newark. This work has gained quite a bit of traction.

0:40:58.3 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So they’re actually replicating a couple of mobile lead testing units in two other New Jersey cities. And this idea that in this particular project, so much of her research was driven by the community, but then also alongside. And so there was an opportunity to train high schoolers, local college students that were back home for summer breaks. And so this has been a very integrated project that has led to, most recently, the publication of a community voice paper in the Environmental Justice Journal in their special issue for liberation science. So really proud of this work and the work that she’s gonna be doing and hopefully we’ll be able to continue as a future faculty.

0:41:44.0 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: The last project that I wanted to highlight is probably the newest in terms of timing, but then even thinking. So one of my students, Jasmine McAdams, is a member, is a PhD student in our energy resources group. And she is really interested and motivated by thinking about the impact of energy grid disruptions for incarcerated populations. She has personal motivations for wanting to do this work, but we’ve been really motivated. And as we’ve been digging into this topic in particular, I wanna highlight this book by Judah Schept, “Coal, Cages, Crisis.” And it really speaks to this trade-off between this just energy transition and how that has actually become a mechanism for implementing or building prisons in Central Appalachia.

0:42:34.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So her work is taking an interesting form and probably going to have more of a political economy framing, but really excited about the different methods that she’s going to be using. And I think the framing and helping us to challenge even some of the norms of how we’re thinking about climate and what are just transition that we’re making for climate impacts. But what are the trade-offs that we have to think about as we’re engaging in this work and for whom. I’m kind of getting back to this, who is still being excluded, even in our attempt to implement environmental justice.

0:43:09.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Admittedly, don’t really have major takeaways from this other than, like I said, this is an evolving framing. The ongoing question in my brain, and I’m sure for others as well as you’re listening to this is, how do we, especially again being situated in engineering, reconcile the legacy of engineering and infrastructure apartheid with this hopeful, idyllic aspiration to embed love, liberation, and justice into the systems that we create? And is this possible, or do we have to just burn the whole system down? I don’t know.

0:43:39.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Again, it’s an evolving space of thinking and research for me and my group, but really excited to answer any questions or just have a conversation about that. And then, as I mentioned, we’re just continuing to expand our research. Well, my students are really digging into their projects and so excited to see where it goes, and I think really challenging the legacy of dehumanization in our field and in our practice and how we build systems and just challenging the conventions of what do we consider to be critical infrastructure, how do we think about critical needs, and for whom, in the process of not just doing research, but in practice as well.

0:44:18.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: So I’ll leave with this this last scripture, “Learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow,” and again, this point to really hit on defend the oppressed, this is, I think, more timely than not to really think about how we situate not only our work but ourselves in the world that we are existing in today, and so this continues to be my motivation, this continues to be the scripture that my lab’s work is founded on and so I’m excited to continue this thinking and just to continue to try to bring this good work into the world of academia. Anyway, I’m gonna take a sip of water. Thank you all for listening. Happy to take any questions.

0:45:09.1 Julian Agyeman: Well, Maya, what a fantastic trip. I could have spent a couple more hours having you unpack a lot of the things in there. There’s so much rich work. And I’m proud that our chance conversation in Toronto led to you rethinking the notion of desert to one of apartheid. And I think you should get tenure on that alone, okay? If you don’t, I’ll be writing to the Regents Of The University Of California. Okay, we’ve got some questions.

0:45:42.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: That’s recorded. So just, so y’all are witnesses to that. Julian is gonna write a letter to you. [laughter]

0:45:49.2 Julian Agyeman: Hey, I’ve written to the Regents Of the University Of California before. I’m a nuisance in their eyes. Okay, first question from my friend, Deb Guenther from Mithun in Seattle. What are the aspects of your work that seem to resonate with the average engineer?

0:46:05.6 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Hmm. That is a great question. I’m chuckling. So one of my students just went through prelim on Monday, and that was one of the comments that came up. It’s like, “Oh, how does this connect to the engineering coursework?” You know, and I think this is actually what motivated the shifting to infrastructure broadly. I think as we begin to situate the work in this convention of design and recognizing that, hey, we have design criteria, there are standards that we have to adhere to and all the things that engineers like to say. The more we can make this a standard practice, at least my hopeful thinking is, if it becomes standard, then it becomes convention and that becomes how we operate. I don’t know that I can say that my work resonates well with engineers. [laughter] Probably not very surprising. But I think if nothing else, especially at least within Civil and Environmental Engineering, you will find that most people who get into this particular subfield of engineering are very altruistic. Almost everybody has entered into the space because they wanted to make the world a better place, in whatever respective tradition they find themselves in.

0:47:20.9 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And so that being the motivation for the work, I think even those who may not fully get it, they have questions and they’re interested because it gets back to their core of, I wanna make the world a better place with engineering, and this is how we can maybe do this. So that’s my long answer to your question. But yeah, definitely challenging some of the conventions in engineering. And as you can imagine, there’s some pushback and maybe some reluctance to do that.

0:47:46.0 Julian Agyeman: Great. Thanks. We got a question from Sharon. Do you work with communities who are reclaiming spaces for growing food or even just re-vegetating to avoid urban heat islands?

0:47:57.8 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Yes. So that’s some of the motivation for the GSI by and for communities project. Both locations in Central and North Richmond and deep east Oakland are very concrete, not a lot of green space, a lot of challenges around air pollution. So even just being able to work alongside communities that recognize that as a pain point. And even though small interventions and decentralized interventions at the very least, we can articulate and work alongside them to understand, hey, this is something that can help with capturing poor air quality or help alleviating urban heat islands. And so that is one of the things that we are thinking about for that particular project. I think there was another part to that question, but hopefully that I got to, most of it.

0:48:46.1 Julian Agyeman: We’ve got another question here. This is quite a long one from anonymous participant. Anonymous participant, because you’ve asked a good question, I’m going with this, but we do like to actually see names, FYI, in the future for obvious reasons. So anonymous participant says, “Thank you. Curious about how an analysis of colonialism and particularly the concept of predatory inclusion complicates our understanding of infrastructure apartheid from a grassroots praxis perspective. Can you discuss the conflict between when ethical reconciliation of infrastructure development is feasible/worthwhile versus situations in which obstructing colonial development may be the most strategic move towards a more just world outcome, e.g., do we need equitable distribution of oil infrastructure or to keep fossil fuels in the ground?” I think that’s the longest question.

0:49:40.8 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Great question.

0:49:42.9 Julian Agyeman: Yeah.

0:49:43.9 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Long but beautiful question.

0:49:45.7 Julian Agyeman: Sure.

0:49:46.9 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: That is… I love that question so much because it kind of gets to the core of one of the things that I challenge my students to think about is, so engineers, our tradition is build, build, build, build, build. [laughter] And the question really is, does it need to always come down to building something? I think even the legacy and the tradition of engineering is being so focused on building more, building more, like you said, has its roots in colonialism, imperialism. There’s constantly this lack mentality of we don’t have enough. So even that notion, you’re absolutely right.

0:50:23.1 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And I think even as we think about infrastructure apartheid, being that built infrastructure has led to these legacies. The question really that we start with is, do we need to build? And if not, what does restoration, what does justice in this context look like? It doesn’t always need to be a large infrastructure project that’s going to cost billions of dollars that we’re probably going to need to tear up in 50 years anyway. And that’s honestly where we kind of get out a lot of the work. And one of the richness about working alongside partners in this is that we as engineers get to challenge the notion amongst our own community that we don’t always need to build. And that doesn’t need to be the solution in how we approach this work.

0:51:00.4 Julian Agyeman: Okay.

0:51:02.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Hope that answers the question

0:51:02.5 Julian Agyeman: I’m just noticing a couple of questions about recording. Yes, this will be recorded. Tom, can you resend the link, the shareable link, if it’s available? This will be both a podcast and this direct recording that you see here. We’ve got a question from MT. Hi, as a young Black and disabled person with no background in engineering, but rather heal in justice and learn stewardship, I’m wondering if you have advice for how to learn more about technical liberatory engineering. Are there programs or mentorship opportunities you know of? Thanks so much for your work. And everybody is saying, thanks for your work, Maya. So, you’re on the right track.

0:51:45.5 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Good to hear. [laughter] I think, admittedly, I’m struggling with the question, and I think maybe it’s… The framing of it is technical liberatory engineering. I wanna call this out ’cause this is often what I hear sometimes in the discipline, and you know, there’s times that technical, I think is weaponized to maybe demean the nature of the work. I argue that if this helps us to do our traditional technical work better, it is inherently technical. I’ve worked with systems, I’ve worked with people, people are far more complicated. And so thinking about this work and even a qualitative orientation even that my group takes to unpack some of these realities, I would argue that that is the technical liberatory engineering that we’re really leaning into.

0:52:40.3 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: And I think for those of us who are in this space, be it characterizes equity, justice and engineering, most of us young, junior assistant professors on the tenure track, most, if not all of us have that same orientation where we do very deep community-engaged work, and that becomes the substance of the technical scholarship that we’re bringing to the field. Hope that answers your question.

0:53:06.5 Julian Agyeman: Great, thanks. We have a question from Meredith Levy, Tufts alumni and doing great work in the Boston Metro area, great presentation. Since many of these infrastructural systems are inter-tangled and one relies on the other, how do you begin to unpack that, to un-track, redress the resulting apartheid?

0:53:33.1 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: That is a great question and a very complex one that admittedly we are still exploring. I think the short answer is, this is why we take a systems approach to it, and systems thinking, systems theory in and of itself is flawed to some degree or limited, I should say, not flawed, but limited in the extent that in the traditional way that We think about systems thinking and framing, there needs to be some bound on the system in order to really be able to analyze it, that has its limitations. But from a practical standpoint, that is how we begun to think of the work. What does that look like to disentangle that when you actually transition it from academic scholarship to practice is a totally different beast and not one that admittedly we have an answer to yet.

0:54:25.2 Julian Agyeman: Right. Okay. I think we’re just about out of time, but let me just… We do have a question from La Trecchia who is in Tampa and who is a professor at the University of South Florida.

0:54:42.4 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Awesome.

0:54:43.5 Julian Agyeman: Where she founded the Environmental… I love your work and I’m fascinated by what you shared about East Tampa and food apartheid. I’ve reflected on this quite a bit lately. I regularly shop in the Sanwa Farmer’s… In East Tampa, which seems to be a critical resource for disadvantaged communities. So more of a pointer than a question. So that really resonated. We are out of time now, so our next Cities@Tufts session will be on the 6th of December, where Dr. Dana R. Thomson will present on co-design in global development data initiatives. Maya, fantastic presentation. I am gonna be watching your work as I’m sure many of our people are. I want people in the watch room, the UEP Urban planning students, what are the implications of infrastructure apartheid, Maya’s Fantastic work, for urban planning? Let’s start thinking about that, and if anybody wants to do some research with me on what are the implications, email me and let me know and we’ll link in with some of the work that Maya is doing, and let’s see what the urban planning response could be.

0:56:00.1 Julian Agyeman: Could we offer something to a simple engineer who is trying to understand all of these issues? Again, Maya, thanks. Can we give a round of applause for Maya Carrasquillo?

0:56:15.7 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: Thank you, Julian. Thank you, everyone. It’s been a pleasure.

0:56:17.2 Julian Agyeman: Stay safe, everybody. See on the 6th.

0:56:19.8 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: All right.

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0:56:25.7 Tom Llewellyn: We hope you enjoyed this week’s presentation. As Julian mentioned, our next lecture, co-design and global development data initiatives with Dr. Dana R. Thomson will take place on Wednesday, December 6. Click the link in the show notes to register for a free ticket. Cities@Tufts is brought to you by Tufts University and Shareable with support from the Barr and Shift foundations. Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants, Deandra Boyle and Muram Bacare. “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song. Robert Raymond is our audio editor. Additional communications, operations and funding support are provided by Paige Kelly, Alison Huff and Bobby Jones. And the series is co-produced and presented by me, Tom Llewellyn. Please hit subscribe, leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and share with others so this knowledge can reach people outside of our collective bubbles. So for this week’s show, here’s the final thought.

0:57:20.6 Dr. Maya Carrasquillo: As we kind of lead into this edition of thinking about infrastructure from apartheid, understanding rather than one that is violent, it removes this idea that with different actions, the outcomes can be shifted.

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Urban Agriculture, Racial and Economic Equity Transcript

[The timestamps in the transcript correspond with the audio version of this lecture.]

Tom Llewellyn: Hey, Tom here, just wanna make a quick ask before we get started. If you’ve been enjoying this show and you wanna help us grow our audience and reach more people, one of the most helpful things you can do is to leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or just the rating on Spotify. It’s super easy to do and will only take a few moments of your time, but it will make a huge difference for us, because the algorithms on these apps are designed to push forward shows that get more ratings and reviews. If you’re listening on either of these platforms you don’t even have to pause the show to rate it. With your support we’ll be able to keep this project going, so, thanks for helping us out. And now, on with the show.

[music]

Kristin Reynolds: We think about urban agriculture as the growing of food and non-food crops like flowers for example and the raising of livestocks in and around cities, but also its integration into the social, economic, and ecological fabric of the urban landscape. Urban agriculture may not produce the highest and best use when we are talking about the urban planning in sense of the term in terms of the use of urban space, but it produces multiple and intersecting benefits. We talk about these in categories such as health benefits, increased access to healthy food, opportunities to spend time outside, social benefits in terms of interacting with neighbors that one might not otherwise interact with, youth development, economic benefits like food affordability, and in the case of organizations that create jobs, creating some jobs in the community, and then ecological, increasing biodiversity, helping to reduce urban heat island effect. So we talk about these intersecting benefits as part of the overall picture of urban agriculture and what it brings to the city.

Tom Llewellyn: Welcome to another episode of Cities@Tufts brought to you by Sharable and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University with support from the Barr and Shift Foundations. Today’s show features a lecture from Dr. Kristin Reynolds who discusses recent evolutions in urban agriculture practices and policy, their implications for racial and economic equity, and her current work to inform more socially injust urban agriculture policy through her Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab. In addition to this podcast, the video, transcript, and graphic recordings are available on our website, just click the link in the show notes. And now, here’s host of Cities@Tufts, Professor Julian Agyeman.

Julian Agyeman: Welcome to our Cities@Tufts Virtual Colloquium. I’m Professor Julian Agyeman and together with my research assistant Deandra Boyle and Mariam Bakari. Under our partners Shareable and the Barr Foundation, we organize Cities@Tufts as a cross-disciplinary academic initiative which recognizes Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning, and sustainability issues. I’d like to acknowledge and we would all like to acknowledge that Tufts University’s Medford campus is located on Colonized Wampanoag and Massachusetts traditional territory. We are delighted today to host my friend and longtime colleague, Dr. Kristin Reynolds, Chair and Assistant Professor of Food Studies at the New School in New York. As a geographer with expertise in International Agricultural development, she’s interested in understanding how uneven power dynamics in the food system originates and articulated different community and geopolitical scales.

Julian Agyeman: Using critical and participatory action research, her work focuses on informing the creation of more socially just food systems through scholarship, policy and activism. Dr. Reynolds first book, and I gotta say people here, this is my favorite book title ever, period. Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City, which she co-authored with Nevin Cohen, examined the work of community-based activists to advance social justice through urban agriculture and roles that research and scholarship can play in such initiatives. A forthcoming book, Radical Food Geographies: Power, Knowledge and Resistance, co-edited with Colleen Hammelman and Charles Levkoe, will be published next year. Kristin, a Zoomtastic welcome to Cities@Tufts, over to you.

Kristin Reynolds: Thank you very much Julian for that lovely and glowing introduction. I’m so happy to be here and thank you for inviting me to speak with you all today. I also want to begin by acknowledging that The New School, located in Manhattan, is located on traditional and unseated Lenape territories and acknowledging this part of the social justice practice that I attempt to employ in all of the work that I do as a scholar, as educator. I’m very happy to be here with you all talking today about some of my work on urban agriculture and using action researchers approaches to advance racial and economic equity. I’ll give some background to how we think about urban agriculture in this field, a little bit about what I mean when I’m talking about action research. And then provide a few, three examples from some of my past. And thank you for the shout out on Beyond the Kale and current work in this area.

Kristin Reynolds: First of all I want to say that there’s not one singular history of urban agriculture in the United States. There are in fact multiple histories that intersect with each other. I wanna give some highlights that will be good background for the rest of the talk. To begin, what do we mean when we talk about urban agriculture? In the field, that is in the scholarly field, but I think also in the literal field, you think about urban agriculture as the growing of food and non-food crops like flowers for example and the raising of livestocks in and around cities but also its integration into the social, economic, and ecological fabric of the urban landscape. Urban agriculture may not produce the highest and best use when we’re talking about the urban planning sense of the term in terms of the suburban space, but it produces multiple and intersecting benefits.

Kristin Reynolds: We talk about these in categories such as health benefits, increased access to healthy food opportunities to spend time outside, social benefits in terms of interacting with neighbors that one might not otherwise interact with, youth development, economic benefits like food affordability, and in the case of organizations that create jobs, creating some jobs in the community, and then ecological, increasing biodiversity, helping to reduce urban heat island effect. So we talk about these intersecting benefits as part of the overall picture of urban agriculture and what it brings to the city. On this infographic, which comes out of another project that I was part of, we see some ideas of what the forms of urban agriculture are. And so I think community gardens are usually most familiar to people, folks growing for themselves or their families or their extended community on a small plot.

Kristin Reynolds: Beauty farms where people are working together, often these are youth projects, growing food for sale or even to give away in low income communities. Institutional farms and gardens, like those at hospitals or school gardens, where these are used for therapeutic and or educational purposes, as well as growing the food. And then commercial farms, which I’ll talk more about a bit later, but as the name suggests, farms in cities that are selling their products. So that’s kind of an overview of what we talk about when we mean urban agriculture. So, as I noted, there are diverse histories that get told about urban agriculture in the United States. So I’ll start with this narrative, which is that there are centuries of examples of people growing food in cities.

Kristin Reynolds: The late 19th century is the pinpoint that is often placed on government support for urban agriculture, with the Pingree potato patches. It was land that was provided to urban residents by the mayor of Detroit, seeking to address food insecurity in the wake of economic downturn, as well as to quell potential unrest. In the early 20th century in New York, progressives of that era, who were fearing the loss of what they saw as good values in the wake of increasing industrialization and loss of contact with nature, created children’s gardens that brought children. And you might note from this picture, rather well-to-do children outside to engage in green work, to learn about agriculture and food, and to be outside. In both World Wars, in the United States, as well as other countries, including the UK, the federal government created a program… Well, programs, including Victory Garden programs in which the government provided education and tried to promote the use of gardening in cities in order to divert rural agricultural products from urban consumers to the Allied war effort.

Kristin Reynolds: A statistic is that at one point in the ’40s, 44% of vegetables consumed in the United States were grown in cities. If you’re interested in government videos, I encourage you to look up Victory Garden videos and you’ll see lots of very convincing educational footage from the time. And then, so these were largely government-driven urban agriculture initiatives. And in the ’60s and ’70s began a new era of urban agriculture and urban farming that was more grassroots-driven. Here I put a picture of the Boston Urban Gardeners, a group that was created in the 1970s to build gardens in the city of Boston. This also took place in New York. So for those who are not familiar with New York, these are the five boroughs, Manhattan, the Bronx, let’s go this way, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

Kristin Reynolds: And so in other cities like Boston, during this time period, there was economic crisis, fiscal crisis, globally, as well as in the city’s budget, and unscrupulous landlords who would burn down apartment buildings so they can collect insurance money. So this, combined with racist policies of the time, created a situation in which there were lots that were seen by some as vacant, though that term, and we can discuss later the contestation of that framing of land, but that there were lots that might have started out looking like this. That gardeners, farmers, individuals living in the communities, or not living in the communities, kind of took these spaces over and started to make community gardens on them. At that time… So this was the beginning of the grassroots movement for urban gardening in New York. The city government followed suit creating the Green Thumb Program, which is part of our New York City Parks and Rec Department, and to this day manages the majority… Well, a large number of the community gardens in New York City.

Kristin Reynolds: And at this time, there were also federal HUD block grants that provided funding for gardens in low income communities, which brings us to the reality that many of the gardens in New York City are located in low income neighborhoods. Skipping through a few decades, gardens, I talked a little bit about the social benefits but gardens are also used and continue to be used, not only as places to grow food, but also as spaces where communities can continue to live their cultural practices such as this example of a casita in a community garden in the Bronx, casitas being among other cultures, also using these small structures in a the garden as a place for social gathering. And this is a Puerto Rican run garden. So those are a few examples of urban agriculture and its history in the United States.

Kristin Reynolds: But I’d like to always feel it’s important to introduce some critiques to urban agriculture and then I’ll talk a little bit more about the second narrative. So, first of all, that it is true, this part is not a critique. It is true that urban farms and gardens often sell their products in the city, and often that is in an effort to provide food access to those who can’t afford healthy and fresh vegetables. Now the critique, and I think this critique is more relevant probably in the scholarly world than it is on the ground grassroots community world but it’s important to highlight nonetheless, is a question of whether using commercial sales of garden products in the city to address food security is just representing neoliberalization. That is the supporting the rollback of government, social service, and social safety networks. Or addressing deeper issues, that surround food security by simply selling food. So here’s one critique that exists.

Kristin Reynolds: A second critique is that, because of the fact that gardens can increase property values, urban gardens when they’re created in neighborhoods that are low income, can end up pushing out a long time residents. So this is a critique that’s taken very seriously. This one is certainly not just an academic debate. And then finally, I want to talk about the politics of representation, as they relate to race, class, and power in the system. So what you see on the screen is the image of an article that was published in New York Magazine in 2010, called, What an Urban Farmer Looks Like.

Kristin Reynolds: And in this article there were beautiful photographs of urban farmers, most of whom were white folks, which doesn’t represent the reality of urban farming in New York City. And this was problematic in terms of how it’s presented. What is this like up and coming trend in New York. I always want to be fair when I talk about this, that many of the gardeners that were featured in this piece, including the person that you see on the slide, were very vocal about the fact that they didn’t think that this represented New York City urban agriculture, that this needed to present in more diverse picture. And so that was important. And coming back to the point about representation, when we see these kinds of narratives that say, here’s what an urban farmer is, here large on the screen, this can reinforce political and financial inequalities, insofar as media representation can bring political policy attention, it can bring funding from large or well deep pocketed people and organizations. So these are critiques that are important to keep in mind when we talk about urban agriculture and its potential benefits.

Kristin Reynolds: And these patterns are particularly bothersome. And I’m speaking mostly today to the context of New York ’cause it’s the context that I know the best, particularly bothersome when we recognize what the reality is in terms of folks who have been leading urban agriculture in New York for its at least many decades history. It’s diverse. The city is diverse, and the leadership in urban agriculture is diverse. So these are three individuals and one group that I’ll talk a bit more about later, who are very much leaders in the food justice, environmental justice, and urban agriculture community here in the city. Yonnette Fleming, who also goes by Farmer Yan. La Finca del Sur, which is a group in the South Bronx led by women of color and their alleys, that’s how they describe themselves Ray Figueroa at the France of Brook Park, in the South Bronx, an elder Abu Talib who is one of the leaders of the Taqwa community farm in the Bronx.

Kristin Reynolds: So before moving on, I want to close out this piece about the kind of general concepts in urban agriculture by talking about general challenges. So some of these include policy restrictions in cities that, for example, disallow people to grow food in their front lawns, or grow, raise particular livestock. These are challenges confronted by urban farmers in many cities throughout the world, not just in the United States. Challenges having access to land or having land tenure in New York. There’s been a long-term debate about how long gardeners are able to use or have access to the sites, that land that is owned by the city. And for structural challenges like accessing water are also something that is experienced in lots of places, accessing things that you might find very easily in rural areas like straw or fencing, right? So these are general challenges. Funding for small items, large and small, from seeds and tools to fencing and generators.

Kristin Reynolds: And then finally, the challenge of perceived legitimacy or illegitimacy, I suppose, in terms of thinking about urban agriculture and whether it is a legitimate or good use of urban space, when we think about this context of highest mass use, the potential to use that space for other things like income generating rents or housing. And then in terms of legitimacy as quote-unquote “real agriculture.” And so this is also a challenge throughout the world. Couple of these images on the right hand, my right hand side anyway of the slide, demonstrate some of the government actions in New York City that have basically kind of enacted or acted on this perceived lack of legitimacy for urban agriculture in the city.

Kristin Reynolds: Giuliani, when he was mayor in the ’90s, sought to sell off many of the city owned gardens. Those were eventually saved by a couple of non-profit organizations. And this came back in about 2015 and ’16, when de Blasio’s administration had also proposed to sell off gardens in order to build housing. So these are examples of general challenges to urban agriculture that we discussed. They can be felt more by some communities and particularly as related to what I’ll be talking about in a little bit. Low income communities, those that are experiencing the brunch of structural racism vis-a-vis policymaking. So I want to then close this section by saying that despite these debates and challenges and drawbacks and critiques, I always like to point out that I think urban agriculture is a positive, a net positive for our cities. And then delving down deeply into how exactly, it can help to advance justice and sustainability is an important part of our work as scholars.

Kristin Reynolds: So coming to action research, and this term gets thrown around a lot and it can mean lots of different things. So to frame what I want to talk about here, I consider, or the way that I use action research is as seeing research as a tool to advance social change. This can be participatory action research that means action research that involves community members and the design, conducting research, analysis, writing up results, et cetera. But it doesn’t have to be participatory. And I think that’s an important part of this work that oftentimes these words get used interchangeably, but as we’ve found in some of our research, sometimes the participatory part isn’t wanted or needed by communities, but the research can be contributing to their work nonetheless.

Kristin Reynolds: So, action research has diverse roots in various thinkers throughout the world. Three, that I’ll highlight. WEB Du Bois, who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, worked with African American folks in communities near Atlanta to conduct surveys documenting racialized inequality, and disparities in their community. And his work more broadly was among the leaders in establishing the fact that racism is a structural rather than an individual reality in our society… Or problem in our society, I should say. Kurt Lewin in the 1940s worked with workers in industrial factories in the United States to conduct research to improve their practices. And he in fact was the first, as far as I understand it, to use the exact term action research. Paolo Frere was an educator in Brazil who taught folks in Brazil who were not literate how to read, so that they could address some of the political challenges they were facing on their own without being reliant on outside researchers or elites to engage in that work. And so these are some of the key figures that you hear about when we talk about urban… Sorry, not urban agriculture, action research.

Kristin Reynolds: And so then there’s, of course, critique. And I wanna talk about the critical approach. So a critique sometimes of action research is whether is this biased because there’s an objective to use the research for social change, does that mean that it can’t be considered like solid research. And a couple of responses to this are, first, that there’s a debate about this question of objectivity in all of social science that goes back hundreds of years. The fact that it’s action research doesn’t mean that it’s more biased or less biased that has to do with the integrity of the research and also, again, connects, or we can be reminded of the fact that in social science, there’s this debate about whether because we as social scientists are looking at social problems, we can never actually be objective, right?

Kristin Reynolds: So that’s a large debate. I won’t go further with that unless anyone wants to talk about it in the Q and A. But, I think that it’s important then to, for those using action research, as all research, to use sound and rigorous methods, we don’t bias our results. We use standardized data collection processes et cetera, so that we can get the best data that we can to inform the changes, whether it’s about food justice, environment, other social problems the best data that we can. And then the last thing I’ll say on this is that there are also critical approaches, Maria Elena Torre, Michelle Fine and their colleagues at the Public Science Project at the CUNY, City University of New York. Talk about this approach of critical participatory action research which encompasses all of what I’ve just talked about, but also is specifically using feminist standpoint theory, thinking about positionality of researchers, recognizing the positionality of researchers following the lead of community when conducting participatory research. And recognizing the diversity of thinkers that have been tributaries to the broader field of action research. So this is the approach that I tend to follow in my work in seeking to use their action research or research to inform positive change towards racial and economic justice in the food system.

Kristin Reynolds: So now I’ll give three short examples from my work using these approaches. The first is the illustrious Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City, with Nevin Cohen, my colleague, we published this book in 2016. We had four overarching goals for this study and the book itself. First, we wanted to understand what strategies urban agriculture activists and leaders in New York were using to specifically address social justice. That is racial justice, economic justice, gender justice, those kinds of questions through urban agriculture. Beyond the general benefits like improving food access or providing outdoor space for people together.

Kristin Reynolds: We’ve specifically wanted to speak with folks of color and women who were leading this work. And I guess I skipped around, so I’ll just finish that point. The reason that we wanted to do that is we wanted to help to shift the narrative through our work away from this thing that we were seeing. Like I talked about a few minutes ago, this tendency to say, “Oh, look in the media, look at this new urban agriculture activity that’s cropping up.” And all you see is like white hipsters, right? And we knew that wasn’t true. And so we wanted to use the skills that we had and the access that we had to publishing to help shift that narrative.

Kristin Reynolds: Coming back to this point here, we wanted to understand how specifically folks and groups, using urban agriculture, were addressing political and economic inequity in the city. And then coming down to the last point, we wanted to ask, learn, understand if there are possibilities for social scientists like ourselves to use our tools of research and our access to publishing, et cetera, to support this kind of on the ground work. The project built on a project that we were part of prior to the, Beyond the Kale Cloud five Borough Farm, in which we, with a group of additional researchers, sought to understand and document the whole landscape of urban agriculture in New York, propose policy recommendations and metrics and evaluation tools to understand what was happening broadly. In that study, we heard from people that there were racial, economic and gender based disparities throughout the urban agriculture community in New York City.

Kristin Reynolds: And because we weren’t focused on this and we weren’t able to write too much about this in this publication Five Borough Farm, we thought we’re just going to do another study on this so that we can really investigate or dig into to this problematic. So we conducted interviews with farmers and gardeners and non-profit staff. Again, explicitly trying to speak with women, identified folks of color who were leaders in the field. We held a focus group. We held a public forum at the new school where we invited some of the folks that where we were speaking with in the interviews, as well as those working in academic institutions, to have a conversation about whether or how we might collaborate together to work on food and social justice issues or what scholars could do.

Kristin Reynolds: We engaged in participant observation, policymaking and activism, reviewed documents with policy documents. And our approach was a grounded theory approach, and that means that we weren’t trying to test a theory and see if it was true on the ground, but rather listen to people as we ask them and they responded to the questions that we asked, and try to kind of understand some broader trends and themes that we were hearing from people on the ground. This map shows the sites of all of the people that we interviewed. So we made an effort to have representation in all of the boroughs and we were happy that we succeeded in doing that.

Kristin Reynolds: So we heard a few things, so this is… I know you’ve seen this slide before, that’s intentional, I wanted to talk more about what these groups do. So Yonnette Fleming, she also is known as Farmer Yan, leads workshops for women farmers and women in the community that are focused on food justice, but also confronting patriarchy in their lives and confronting racism in the food system. She’s a very adamant and vocal leader in this field, and she also now does a lot of work with youth of color leadership programs in her community. La Finca del Sur, as I mentioned, is a farm that describes itself as being run by women of color and their allies.

Kristin Reynolds: They hold events and hold a safe space on this farm, which is, if I remember correctly, a couple acres in size in the South Bronx, in order to create safe spaces for women, but also to connect with the reality of women farmers in the global South, which are some of the communities of origin for some of the participants in this farm. Noting often that in some places of the world, women-identified farmers make up 50% or more of the farmers, though the representation is often that agriculture is a male activity. Ray Figueroa is at Friends of Brook Park and has since become the president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition, and he runs programs that are both, bringing folks to the farm to engage in policy advocacy that brings together advocacy for gardens and for housing. As you might imagine, oftentimes, I’m sure it’s true in many… I know it’s true in many cities, garden advocacy is pitched against affordable housing, like why should we build a garden when we can build affordable housing.

Kristin Reynolds: Ray has worked with colleagues to have bring those two advocacy communities together and argue for both of those things, both and kind of approach. He also runs an alternative to incarceration program for youth, and we can recognize that the majority of youth in New York City who are involved in the criminal justice system are Latinx and are Black African-American youth. And so there’s this multiple layers of justice that are embedded in the work that Ray Figueroa is leading.

Kristin Reynolds: And then finally, again, Elder Abu Talib, who is one of the leaders at the Taqwa Community Farm in the South Bronx who uses this farm to pass on agricultural traditions to younger generations to make safe spaces, again, for youth in a place where there’s not a lot of other kind of greenery and outdoor space where youth can just gather and be free.

Kristin Reynolds: So these are ways that these particular individuals and organizations that they work with are using urban farm sites to specifically work on racial and economic and gender justice issues that step beyond, again, just the other important part of this, which is growing food. And then I would like you to ask you to think back to what I mentioned in terms of general challenges to urban agriculture, land access, funding. Well, in the interviews with these folks, we heard about those challenges and others that are connected to the reality of unequivocal power and privilege as it plays out in the New York City environment. So the reality of political disenfranchisement in low-income communities, not having the easy access to city council members, for example, to try to advocate for a change in a local law to support a particular agricultural activity, and having limited financial resources in the community. Stories like needing a few hundred dollars to buy a generator, and then the individuals in the community don’t just have that in their pockets, whereas in a more wealthy community, that might be the case.

Kristin Reynolds: Stereotypes like, and I’m reporting on what we heard in our research, stereotypes like farmers that might come and sell at a farmer’s market in a low-income community thinking, “No, folks in that community don’t like fruits and vegetables, or thinking, “It’s too violent and dangerous, so I won’t sell my products there, I won’t go there.” To be clear, these kinds of stereotypes are really what some of the groups are even responding to, right? They can’t get farmers from the rural settings, or they couldn’t, to come and sell at their markets, so they’ve then grown their own. A challenge of not being trendy. I’ll talk in a few minutes about commercial urban agriculture, rooftop farming, these things that you see that are like the new face, the non-human face of up-and-coming urban agriculture. And so what we heard from folks is that funders were like, really excited about rooftop farms, or they’re really excited about, these controlled environment agriculture spaces, and people just doing kind of boring old farming in the ground weren’t trendy enough, or weren’t exciting enough for funders to be giving them money. Of course, this was not across the board, but it was a challenge confronted and expressed by some of the folks that we spoke with.

Kristin Reynolds: So a lot of these, you see this quote, I’m sure by now you’ve read this quote on the slide by food justice leader Karen Washington, who kind of sums up some of this power and privilege, unevenness as she has seen it play out in her community with respect to urban agriculture and the food system more broadly. But I wanted to close this slide by just mentioning that there also was mentioned that there was less support funding for quote-unquote “radical work”, and specifically, farmers and gardeners spoke about wanting to do, and they were doing, anti-racist work, anti-racism work on their farms and gardens with youth, with adults. But that funders didn’t wanna to hear about that. They had to learn how to use, like, more placating language. They couldn’t talk about this. Now, I think that some of this has shifted following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Remember that this research was conducted almost 10 years ago now. But I would suspect that some of this remains true. And so these are challenges that have been experienced more specifically than the broader challenges of land access, and the broad challenge of needing funding.

Kristin Reynolds: And so as a final point from this book, before I move on to another couple of quick examples. We specifically asked questions, as I mentioned, about what roles researchers might play. Oftentimes, this comes about in the end of a book or the end of a publication, and those writing just kind of think about it and write what they think would be good, which is great. And we can also ask folks on the ground. So we asked that question, in a few different ways. Here are some of the things that we heard, that we researchers from the outside can highlight and legitimize urban agriculture and social justice activism. That’s what we tried to do in this book. And right now I am recording on it.

Kristin Reynolds: But that rather than focusing on documenting constantly, like the types of urban agriculture that exist out there, what about like lifting up this critical and important work that’s being done that is often not highlighted in media. Again, yes, a little bit more now, I think, but the point still stands. Contextualizing urban food concerns in terms of, it’s not just about whether there’s a supermarket there, but it’s about inequitable food access is about, it’s about racialized poverty, it’s about multi generational unemployment, right? And that this is a role that scholars can play when we can write pieces and conduct analyses that really contextualize what’s going on in the broader social and economic structure.

Kristin Reynolds: And then finally, this part is about approaches and that we heard folks tell us we don’t really need you to ask more questions about what we’re doing. And I don’t mean interview questions, but broad research questions, but rather like take a different approach, engage with us in community driven research, work with us on participatory action research, in some cases, not everybody said this. And I think this is really revelatory. And in the research world, you’re always thinking about what’s the newest research question. And that continues to be true. But then also stepping back to think about how we enact the social justice practices that we write about theoretically, in the work that we do as researchers and scholars.

Kristin Reynolds: So that’s a quick overview of that book, I’ll talk about briefly about two more current projects. And the first is about some evolutions in commercial urban agriculture and policy. So I’m speaking from a couple of research briefs that I’ve written in the past few years that pertain more specifically to New York City, and Paris, I did some work with a colleague, Siquel Andali and then I will talk… I’m also talking about some ongoing work with a PhD student here at The New School. So commercial urban agriculture, I call it like 1.0 people growing food in the city and selling it. So Andrew Coté is a well-known beekeeper in New York City who sells at the green markets all over the place, you can look him up, he’s a social media star.

 

Kristin Reynolds: And Brooklyn Green was the first large outdoor rooftop farm, commercial, and they have a nonprofit arm. And Gotham Greens is a rooftop greenhouse, they have rooftop greenhouses in New York and other cities like Chicago. And this is a picture of their greenhouse in Brooklyn on the top of a Whole Foods Market. So this is what I call commercial urban agriculture, 1.0 And then there’s ag tech. Now this doesn’t just pertain ag tech of the term is not only about urban agriculture, but of course, that’s what I’m focused on here today. And there’s… I don’t have time to get into a complete disambiguation of terms here. But ag tech broadly is the use the use of technology and agriculture, of course. We can debate about what you consider, well we consider technology.

Kristin Reynolds: But when I’m speaking about urban ag-tech, it’s… Examples like you see here on the slide, vertical farming, which may be small scale or large, in warehouses, like you see in this photo, controlled Environment agriculture, well, they’re all controlled environment agriculture, actually, meaning they’re not outside, they’re controlled in terms of humidity, temperature and whatnot. So this is a photo of the company Square Roots that grows in shipping containers. Oftentimes, a lot of these types of production practices are using grow lights. So like the pink has been this kind of, it’s the color du jour.

Kristin Reynolds: And growing mushrooms, like Smallhold does in, again, controlled environments, this one is controlled remotely and can even be controlled at a distance and other in restaurants and homes. And at my last count, there were at least 25 such sites in New York City proper, and maybe slightly higher by now. But this is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about like ag tech and commercial urban agriculture. And we’ve also seen recently policy changes at multiple levels of government.

Kristin Reynolds: Look, making it easier for urban agriculture… Or communities to be zoned for urban agriculture, comprehensive plans that are addressing urban ag, there’s one in the works in New York City, policy papers and proposed legislation such as this one, which was put out in 2020 by now Mayor, Eric Adams, but he was then Borough President and mayor or candidate, claiming that urban agriculture could be part of kickstarting again, New York’s economy, you can see the reference to the pink lights here. And at the state level, California was a leader in 2013, creating what it called agriculture incentive zones that gave incentives for private landowners to make their land and cities available for commercial agriculture, urban agriculture use.

Kristin Reynolds: And I forgot to mention that, though I don’t know a lot about it, but maybe we talk about it later, but I know that there has also been a recent legislation in Boston, back to the municipal level to also support commercial urban farming. At the federal level, United States Department of Agriculture agencies began to pay attention to urban agriculture as the commercial and rooftop farming scene was ramping up. So they included them in their annual outlook for, started creating programs. This was the agricultural marketing service and the farm service agency, which grants loans to farmers. And then the US Farm Bill of 2018 created what is called the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production. Through that, provision in the farm Bill, excuse me, this office and a director position was created.

Kristin Reynolds: A granting program was created to support this type of activity, as well as a federal and local county offices and committees to advise, Secretary of Agriculture on supporting urban agriculture and innovative production. So these are all positive steps for urban agriculture writ large. But there are some narrative shifts that are also taking place that we need to pay attention to, including a tendency, and here I’m also referring to some work by colleagues, Goodman and Miner in 2019, as well as Fair Brown been fair, and Julie Guzman and colleagues who have had a large project looking at this tech sector. So solutionism a narrative that urban agriculture, ag tech in particular, is going to help solve food insecurity under climate change, contribute to urban sustainability. This is being pitched in both business and government sectors, as you can see represented by these images on the slide.

Kristin Reynolds: But we have to question this and in first in terms of the types of products that urban agriculture tends to produce. It’s not staple crops like grains and tubers, but rather salad greens. But also in terms of the solutionism is create… Pitching urban agriculture as the silver bullet without necessarily compelling us to look beyond why we have food insecurity and why we’re seeing increasing environmental degradation and climate change.

Kristin Reynolds: And then the second part of this is the pitch of profitability. You look online, you’ll see lots and lots of this narrative, that urban ag tech is going to be a great investment for venture capitalists. There are mixed results in the latest report from the ag tech firm, AgFunder that does an annual census of controlled environment agriculture. But nonetheless, this pitch is often the triple win, planet, food security, environmental sustainability, and profitability. But then when we see all of this happening, we have to take pause, I think, and think about the effects that the legitimization of commercial urban agriculture in particularly high tech urban ag, might have on the structure of the field, or it might be called a sector in this case. What does it mean for community based and grassroots organizations that are trying to grow food for their communities and do some of the things that I talked about, in the Beyond the Kale book. And then second, what effects might this have on racial or economic equity in the food system? So this is something that I’m addressing in a paper I’m writing with my, one of my graduate students, Edric Godfrey, here at the New School. So I know I’m out of time, but I just wanna close by talking about a new initiative that I’m starting called, The Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab at The New School.

Kristin Reynolds: I have another graduate student, Constance Smith, who is helping me with this. Our vision is to contribute to racial and economic justice through action research, to collaborate with community-based organizations and institutions including BIPOK, and people of a global majority led groups, and to build relationships with community members and others consumed with food and social justice to collaborate together in ways that seem fit. So this is being… I’m kinda building this out within our food studies program. Information is at this website that you see on the slide. So we, in 2022 and ’23 last year, had conversations with community leaders to ask them what might we be able to do through research to support your work? We wanted to understand what are some similar initiatives that exist in New York at The New School so that we can build upon and contribute to this community, and not be duplicative.

Kristin Reynolds: And then we were exploring new collaborations so that our first project, and I know that Dr. Kara A. Woods was on the call at one point. I don’t know if she’s still here or not, but if you’re, hello. Our inaugural project is looking at the social equity implications of this new office of urban agriculture through a racial equity lens. And so this is a project that’s in process, so I won’t report on any findings at this point, but what we’re seeking to understand is the implications when we think about the discriminatory practices of on part of the USDA toward farmers of color throughout many decades, history, and what we’re seeing in terms of racial equity with the rollout of these farm bill mandate, these farm bill created programs. The work is supported by the socially disadvantaged farmers and policy research center at Alcorn State University. And so we’re happy to be in collaboration with those folks and with Dr. Woods.

Kristin Reynolds: And so to conclude, I just wanna try to bring this all together. That we need to recognize, first of all, the significance of urban agriculture’s multiple benefits. And this is something that’s really often spoken about in urban agriculture work. But going beyond that, we also have to think about the structural dynamics of urban agriculture. When we think that, or we want to say that urban agriculture produces social benefits or social justice benefits, we need to really examine those claims in the context of a given initiative or project. What do narrative capture mean for racial justice? What does it mean to just say urban agriculture, a garden’s there, an urban farm is there, now we’ll have food security. And so I think that throughout all of this, I hope what I’ve communicated is that… Or no matter the format of urban agriculture, we need to be asking like deeper questions about social and economic inequality and inequity.

Kristin Reynolds: And then finally, I think that there are real roles that action researchers can play in supporting this work on the ground. I think we’re in the turning point with urban agriculture in US policy. It’s not to be overly optimistic, but there’s certainly much more attention in actual policy action taking place. And so it’s a call, I suppose to get an invitation to those of you who are here who are engaged in research or want to be engaged in research or studying to think through how that work might be able to best contribute to this broader picture of advancing racial and economic equity in the food system. So with that, I will thank you very much, and I’m happy to take your questions.

Julian Agyeman: Well, thank you so much, Kristin. What a great survey and expansive look across this vibrant field, which, as we know, is changing all the time. Several questions. First one from Ivy in Chicago. Ivy says, “In Chicago’s Southside, community gardens are seen as a tool of gentrification. What can we do to support these lands staying in neighbor’s hands and not being converted to development?”

Kristin Reynolds: Yeah, that’s a great… Obviously, a great question and always a conundrum in cities where housing is expensive. I live in New York. We have a big affordable housing crisis here. I think that… Maybe I’ll say two things, because I don’t know what your involvement is, the person that asked the question in urban agriculture. If one is thinking that, “Oh, there’s an empty lot, there should be a garden there.” Talk with the community. Does the community want that? Or if you’re part of the community, still, talk with the rest of your community. Because I think a lot of times, the questions about gentrification are certainly first and foremost about affordability in housing. But it’s also about a community self-determination. And so in what ways are those of us who are interested in urban agriculture as an activity engaging with that problematic? And I have this question all the time, and sometimes the answer is like maybe a garden shouldn’t go there.

Kristin Reynolds: But I think the other broad question is, or point is to get involved in policy advocacy. You have the ward system in Chicago. Speak with your local, your representatives, find out what’s happening in terms of city zoning, and make those connections as I was speaking about one of the actor, the people in here in New York, make those connections between advocacy for housing justice and housing affordability and advocacy for community gardens and food access because they’re often pitted against each other. But I think that what I’ve seen here in New York is that when strategic alliances can be built, that can help address this equity from a broader lens than being about one versus the other. But I think, gentrification is such a conundrum because of the affordability crisis, so, couple thoughts.

Julian Agyeman: Right, thanks, Kristin. Bobby Jones, a long question, but I’m gonna cut to a really important point. “Speaking more broadly, what are some of the tangible ways commercial urban ag folks can show solidarity with the more traditional diverse urban ag that’s not focused on commercial production?”

Kristin Reynolds: Well, I think a lot of times my answer begins with talk with the communities, because I don’t know the answer for all communities, of course. But beyond that response and a lot of times, okay, so if there’s narrative capture or capture of policy makers attention happening, can those that are engaged in this high tech commercial urban ag say, Well, yes, we are part of urban agriculture. And there’s this other part of urban agriculture and we want those folks to be in policy making decisions and conversations as well. So, passing the mic, I guess, is what I’m saying, or making the mic more inclusive. And maybe, if this comes back to asking the groups, but a lot of times community [0:50:24.9] ____ groups are also in need of funds of some sort. So when we’re seeing, $100 million dollars put into a venture, can some of that be used, re-granted or be given I suppose to organizations if they need it. But again, I come back to you ask them.

Julian Agyeman: Good. Thank you. Joel Robinson, who’s, I think, an architect, because he, she, they, say, “Do you think it’s possible for a role for architects, designers, etcetera, in socially responsible growth sharing urban agriculture, or does that always end up being somebody’s vanity project, taking control away from the grassroots organizers? Elite capture, is that happening?”

Kristin Reynolds: Yeah, I think so. I think I might have missed the key word in the question about sharing or, but…

Julian Agyeman: Yeah, I think the the question is about architects, designers. Is there a role for them in socially responsible and pro-sharing urban agriculture?

Kristin Reynolds: Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry to keep saying the same thing, but I think it has to do with asking the community and I work at The New School, and we have a large design school here. So I can time to time interact with design students or design labs that are… Of course, everybody’s interested in urban agriculture ’cause it’s exciting and it’s fun. And I think that what I’ve seen is that sometimes the design field doesn’t take that approach. I know there’s the whole field of user-centered design. So I think that’s part of it. But then… Again, what does the community want? And I mentioned a few minutes ago that I often get questions like this just even having conversations with people in my daily life about how to best help build gardens. And another answer I often give is to be clear in what you want to do in terms of the help. Do you wanna help the community? Do you wanna build a garden? And sometimes those answers don’t go together. And if you wanna build a garden, that’s great, and find where that makes most sense in terms of the community desires. If you really wanna help the community, kind of the same answer from a different angle. What does the community need and want and how can you use your skills as an architect to help support that.

Julian Agyeman: Thanks Kristin. We have a question from Patrizia La Trecchia, University of South Florida. Thank you for a great talk. You were mentioning the narrative that agriculture is a male activity. Patrizia is interested in women’s presence in emerging farming, or emerging in farming communities in Southern Italy, where historically women have been denied land owning because of inheritance laws and rules. And she says, “Today’s communities of young farmers are appropriating rural traditions from remote areas revealing an increasing feminization of agriculture. Is there a feminization of agriculture in the US as well?”

Kristin Reynolds: Well, I’m not that familiar with the Italian agricultural context. I do know a bit about France where I spend a lot of time, in terms of the United States. So here’s a question that also connects back to statistics. The USDA, if for those who aren’t familiar is our main agency that collects agricultural statistics in the United States. And there’s this five year, every five years census of agriculture where they collect those types of statistics. What has changed over time with the USDA census of agriculture is that they’ve changed the categories. And I won’t get too much into the weeds here about this, but they’ve changed the categories such that more female identified farmers are showing up in the agricultural census. And so we see that in terms of statistics that’s true. In terms of, has there been an actual shift on the ground? What do I wanna say about this, it’s not really my area of research right now, but I did work on this many years ago when I worked in California that I think that there’s the recognition piece of it. And you started, I think this question started out in terms of the narrative.

Kristin Reynolds: But then there’s also the different, like small scale and community spaces that are flourishing now that allow more collaborative work with… Among farmers who might not have found community. And so to specifically speak to this question of gender, again, I’m stepping a little out of the area of what I work on, but I know a little bit about it. When I used to work on this topic, when I lived in California, I had worked in extension, I heard from people talking about how the… Like purchasing supplies was male dominated, the salespeople wouldn’t even speak with women farmers. Like all the equipment was suited for large bodies. And I think that over time the building out of a community of women, but also I wanna bring into this quest, into this topic. LGBTQ identified farmers has indeed, I think made more openings for farmers who are not men. Not only to farm, but also to have a farming community that supports them in their work.

Julian Agyeman: Thanks. I think we’ve got probably time for one last question. And that goes to Rahul. “Are there any examples of non-commercial urban gardening ventures that have successfully gotten the attention of commercial funds, policy makers, philanthropists in any way? And what did they do? How do you manage the non-commercial and commercial pressures?”

Kristin Reynolds: My first answer is, I’m not totally sure, but what I wanna say next is.

Julian Agyeman: Absolutely.

Kristin Reynolds: Because I mean, the reason I paused is because when I… Funding for non-commercial gardens and farms is foundation grants, public monies and individual donations, funding for commercial high-tech urban ag, like I’ve been talking about is at least coming from the private sector. And a lot of times it’s coming from venture capital. And so those funding streams don’t necessarily meet. That’s why I kind of paused. But the example I wanna give is in fact about… I mentioned Karen Washington. She’s a major food justice leader and community gardener here in New York City, who, with three colleagues several years ago was able to begin farming outside of the city, in a place called Chester in New York. It’s called Rise & Root Farm. I was just there last weekend for one of their annual harvest events.

Kristin Reynolds: And so it’s a group of women identified, two Black farmers, three LGBTQ farmers who have started this community farm building on the work that they have done in the city, and certainly being able to have access to financial support through the networks that Karen Washington and her colleagues had built and to start this farm, which is both addressing these like representational and equity to land access questions, but also directing the food that they grow to lower income communities. So I know it’s not exactly an answer to that question, but for me it is an example of community gardens and garden leaders focused on justice issues, being able to leverage some of the social capital, I suppose that they have to start farming outside of the city in a more commercial but certainly community oriented sense.

Julian Agyeman: Well, Kristin, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge, your expertise, and your answers to questions are fantastic. Let’s give Cities@Tufts thank you to Kristin.

Kristin Reynolds: Thank you very much for having me.

Julian Agyeman: Thank you. And our next colloquium is on October 25th, and it’ll feature Maya Singhal, who’s a PhD student talking about her doctoral research, How to Fight a Mega-Jail. Fascinating. Thank you. And see you in a couple of weeks time. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Tom Llwewllyn: We hope you enjoyed this week’s presentation. Our next lecture, How to Fight a Mega-Jail with Maya Singhal will take place on Wednesday, October 25th. Click the link in the show notes to register for a free ticket. Cities@Tufts is produced by Tufts University and Shareable with support from the Barr and Shift Foundations. Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants, Deandra Boyle and Mariam Bakari. Light Without Dark by Cultivate Beats is our theme song, Robert Raymond is our co-producer and audio editor. Additional communications, operations and funding support are provided by Paige Kelly, Allison Hoff, and Bobby Jones. And this series is co-produced and presented by me, Tom Llewellyn. Please hit subscribe, leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and share with others so this knowledge can reach people outside of our collective bubbles. That’s it for this week’s show. We hope to see you next.