[REPOST] Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:45:13 -0400

Join the Center for Social Science Scholarship for an important conversation on Food Justice!

Monday, April 20, 2026 · 4 - 5:30 PM In-Person · Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : Gallery

Sign up here

Hanna Garth, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Princeton University

Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best intentions, they often perpetuate food access inequalities and racial stereotypes. Hanna Garth shows how the movement has been affected by misconceptions and assumptions about residents, as well as by unclear definitions of justice and what it means to be healthy. Focusing on broad structures and microlevel processes, Garth reveals how power dynamics shape social justice movements in particular ways.

Drawing on twelve years of ethnographic research, Garth examines what motivates people from more affluent, majority-white areas of the city to intervene in South Central Los Angeles. She argues that the concepts of “food justice” and “healthy food” operate as racially coded language, reinforcing the idea that health problems in low-income Black and Brown communities can be solved through individual behavior rather than structural change. Food Justice Undone explores the stakes of social justice and the possibility of multiracial coalitions working toward a better future.

Special Offer and Giveaway:

Dr. Garth’s book is available from UC Press at a 40% discount using code: EVENT40.
In-person attendees of the lecutre will have the opportunity to enter a raffle to win one of five free copies of the book!

Hosted by the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health. Co-sponsored by the Center for Social Science Scholarship, the Department of American Studies, the Department of Africana Studies, and the Department of Biological Sciences.

CS3 sponsored events are open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.