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Food, Race, and Planning: A Critical Analysis of County Food Action Plans

Denison, Shelley M
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494003397106232

Abstract Details

2017, Master of City and Regional Planning, Ohio State University, City and Regional Planning.
The American Planning Association reports that food systems planning has been a field of growing interest among planners since 2004. Food systems planning encompasses planning activities that are performed in the context of food production, distribution, access, consumption, and waste. These activities are related to a number of planning issues, including land use and zoning, energy allocation, public health, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Like planning in general, food systems planning operates within the context of competing stakeholder interests and power structures. One major problem which food planning can address is the sociospatial disparity in food environments across race for measures of access and consumption. Research consistently shows that Black Americans have lower measures of access to nutritionally-dense food than White Americans, as well as a greater number of diet-related pathological outcomes. While there is continued debate about the causal mechanisms behind these phenomena, the evidence is clear that race and food environments are closely correlated. Many states, counties, cities, and neighborhoods have developed food action plans which address issues such as sustainable food production, healthful food access, and food waste management. However, the author has observed that these plans follow a larger trend in public policy of being “color blind” or "post-racial", meaning policies created without cognizance of the ways race factors into the issues they address. This is evidenced by many plans talking about race in merely a descriptive way—such as reporting simple demographics—or by ignoring race all together. This thesis tested this observation by assessing the presence of race-conscious discourse within a cross section of 10 county food action plans. This was accomplished by operationalizing critical discourse analysis through using ranking method based on Julian Agyeman’s (2005) Just Sustainability Index. By measuring this dimension of plan quality, we can analyze and ask further questions about how and why food action plans do or do not talk about race. This study found that, generally, county level food action plans do not meaningfully address race. That is, that they do not acknowledge the salience of race as an indicator for food access and food environment disparity, nor do they offer recommendations or action steps for remedying such disparity. According to the framework of critical race theory, these results have a number of implications. First, they show that these food action plans do not recognize the primacy of racism as systemic and institutional. Second, because this kind of “colorblind” planning does not acknowledge the impacts of race and racism, these plans arguably exacerbate the problem of race-based disparities in the food system.
Kareem Usher (Advisor)
Bernadette Hanlon (Committee Member)
66 p.
African American Studies; Geography; Urban Planning
food systems; city and regional planning; urban planning; critical race theory; racism; food access; food insecurity; human geography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Denison, S. M. (2017). Food, Race, and Planning: A Critical Analysis of County Food Action Plans [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494003397106232

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Denison, Shelley. Food, Race, and Planning: A Critical Analysis of County Food Action Plans. 2017. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494003397106232.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Denison, Shelley. "Food, Race, and Planning: A Critical Analysis of County Food Action Plans." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494003397106232

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1494003397106232
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© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Food, Race, and Planning: A Critical Analysis of County Food Action Plans by Shelley M Denison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.