“The Elusive Inclusive:” discovering historical legacies of domination embedded in ‘transformative’ work on an urban farm

In her essay, The Elusive Inclusive: Black Food Geographies and Racialized Food Spaces, Margaret Ramirez asks, “Is the form of “justice” that food and other social justice activists practice simply a politics of inclusion that upholds power asymmetries stemming from the plantation?” This video explores the importance of considering how the differing subjectivities of “food justice activists” manifest in different understandings of, and approaches to their work. Looking at The Food Project (TFP)– a white urban agriculture organization situated in Boston’s primarily black neighborhood of Dudley– and calling on interviews conducted with Food Project staff and volunteers, as well as the staff of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), a community controlled development nonprofit, I seek to understand how power asymmetries produced through historical legacies of domination and subjugation are being reproduced through the work of TFP despite their best efforts to create an inclusive and transformative space.