Research | RECHERCHE | Collaborations
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Broadly, my research explores cities, the environment, and social justice at multiple scales through a lens of urban political ecology and critical urban studies. Much of my research has examined the intersection between urban agriculture (UA) movements in the US and Canada, food systems policy and planning, and the specific urban political economies and historical geographies in which they arise. I also work on green gentrification and environmental justice issues, particularly as they relate to historical land uses and racialized planning processes. I conduct both applied and theoretically engaged research using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. In doing so, I hope to innovate urban environmental and food systems research on a theoretical level by drawing attention to social processes, notably to "everyday" politics and governance and their relationship to formal policy, planning, and the broader political economy, and how these relations articulate with and work through race, class, and gender within the broader historical-geographic context of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. Ongoing and past projects include:
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De manière générale, mes recherches explorent les villes, l'environnement et la justice sociale à de multiples échelles à travers le prisme de l'écologie politique urbaine et des études urbaines critiques. Une grande partie de mes recherches ont porté sur l'intersection entre les mouvements d'agriculture urbaine (AU) aux États-Unis et au Canada, les politiques et la planification des systèmes alimentaires, ainsi que les économies politiques urbaines spécifiques et les géographies historiques dans lesquelles ils s'inscrivent. Je travaille également sur les questions de gentrification verte et de justice environnementale, notamment en ce qui concerne les utilisations historiques des terres et les processus de planification racialisés. Je mène des recherches à la fois appliquées et théoriques en utilisant une variété de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives. Ce faisant, j'espère innover la recherche sur l'environnement urbain et les systèmes alimentaires à un niveau théorique en attirant l'attention sur les processus sociaux, notamment sur la politique et la gouvernance "quotidiennes" et leur relation avec la politique formelle, la planification et l'économie politique au sens large, et sur la manière dont ces relations s'articulent avec la race, la classe et le genre et fonctionnent à travers eux dans le contexte historique et géographique plus large du colonialisme et du capitalisme racial. Les projets en cours et passés incluent :
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CURRENT PROJECTS | Projets en Cours
CommunoSerre : Intégration socio-technologique des serres communautaires et solidaires dans des quartiers urbains défavorisés affectés par la pandémie
CommunoSerre is a collaboration with a stellar team of social scientists, environmental scientists, and engineers, this INRS-funded interdisciplinary project focuses on the social and technical challenges and possibilities of incorporating community and/or social economy greenhouses in the neighbourhoods hit hardest by the pandemic in Montréal. Greenhouses are often promoted as a silver bullet for year-round food production in cold climates, but as social scientists have explained for decades, food insecurity is function of poverty and purchasing power than of proximity and production. Are greenhouses the way to go? What do community members think? What is the risk of contributing to green gentification> What are the possibilities for contributing to food justice and food security? And on the technical side, can they be integrated into the existing built environment and heated using energy captured from other structures? How can their efficiency be improved and GHG emissions reduced? How can they be built in a way that is low-cost and affordable? I'm co-leading the project with Jasmin Raymond (INRS-ETE), with the collaboration of Sophie Van Neste (INRS-UCS), Geneviève Bordeleau (INRS-ETE), Louis-César Pasquier (INRS-ETE), Didier Haillot (ÉTS), Danielle Monfet (ÉTS), and Éric Duchemin (AU/LAB). Here's an interview in La Presse about the project.
CommunoSerre is a collaboration with a stellar team of social scientists, environmental scientists, and engineers, this INRS-funded interdisciplinary project focuses on the social and technical challenges and possibilities of incorporating community and/or social economy greenhouses in the neighbourhoods hit hardest by the pandemic in Montréal. Greenhouses are often promoted as a silver bullet for year-round food production in cold climates, but as social scientists have explained for decades, food insecurity is function of poverty and purchasing power than of proximity and production. Are greenhouses the way to go? What do community members think? What is the risk of contributing to green gentification> What are the possibilities for contributing to food justice and food security? And on the technical side, can they be integrated into the existing built environment and heated using energy captured from other structures? How can their efficiency be improved and GHG emissions reduced? How can they be built in a way that is low-cost and affordable? I'm co-leading the project with Jasmin Raymond (INRS-ETE), with the collaboration of Sophie Van Neste (INRS-UCS), Geneviève Bordeleau (INRS-ETE), Louis-César Pasquier (INRS-ETE), Didier Haillot (ÉTS), Danielle Monfet (ÉTS), and Éric Duchemin (AU/LAB). Here's an interview in La Presse about the project.
Compost Contested: An Urban Political Ecology of Municipal Solid Waste Governance in Montreal
That the management of municipal waste is a terrain of political contestation is not new. How waste politics unfold – and how waste is governed, more broadly – within the context of municipal climate policy and the development of a circular economy, however, needs further examination. Previous research has attributed Montréal’s persistent failures to reduce and recycle its organic waste to consumer preferences, to the complexity of coordinating the metropolitan region's 100+ municipalities, or to community opposition to facilities siting, but a more nuanced approach considering multiple factors is needed to understand why organic waste management remains such a trenchant problem. Engaging with critical debates in geography on waste, green development and the circular economy, and urban governance, this SSHRC Insight Development project is guided by two broad theoretical goals: 1) to understand the ways in which ‘formal’ municipal waste management policies, plans, and the ‘everyday’ practices and conceptions of Montrealers shape each other; and 2) to illuminate how conceptions and definitions of ‘waste’, as well as its physical properties, shape how it is ‘governed’.
That the management of municipal waste is a terrain of political contestation is not new. How waste politics unfold – and how waste is governed, more broadly – within the context of municipal climate policy and the development of a circular economy, however, needs further examination. Previous research has attributed Montréal’s persistent failures to reduce and recycle its organic waste to consumer preferences, to the complexity of coordinating the metropolitan region's 100+ municipalities, or to community opposition to facilities siting, but a more nuanced approach considering multiple factors is needed to understand why organic waste management remains such a trenchant problem. Engaging with critical debates in geography on waste, green development and the circular economy, and urban governance, this SSHRC Insight Development project is guided by two broad theoretical goals: 1) to understand the ways in which ‘formal’ municipal waste management policies, plans, and the ‘everyday’ practices and conceptions of Montrealers shape each other; and 2) to illuminate how conceptions and definitions of ‘waste’, as well as its physical properties, shape how it is ‘governed’.
Les serres dans l'Inuit Nunangat : sécurité alimentaire, changement climatique, et développement
An INRS-sponsored stage d'été du 1er cycle (undergraduate summer internship) : Ce projet comprend une revue de la littérature sur la construction des serres dans plusieurs communautés de l’Inuit Nunangat – Nunavik (Nord du Québec), Nunatsiavut (Labrador), Nunavut, et Inuvialuit (TNO/Yukon) – comme stratégie de sécurité alimentaire face à une hausse au coûts alimentaires et les impacts du changement climatique sur l’approvisionnement des aliments traditionnels. Ce projet cherche à mieux comprendre l’étendue, la portée et l’impact de ces serres par rapport aux divers contextes interdépendants, notamment des projets de développement communautaire et régional en cours dans le Nord, des processus d’urbanisation, et des changements climatiques.
An INRS-sponsored stage d'été du 1er cycle (undergraduate summer internship) : Ce projet comprend une revue de la littérature sur la construction des serres dans plusieurs communautés de l’Inuit Nunangat – Nunavik (Nord du Québec), Nunatsiavut (Labrador), Nunavut, et Inuvialuit (TNO/Yukon) – comme stratégie de sécurité alimentaire face à une hausse au coûts alimentaires et les impacts du changement climatique sur l’approvisionnement des aliments traditionnels. Ce projet cherche à mieux comprendre l’étendue, la portée et l’impact de ces serres par rapport aux divers contextes interdépendants, notamment des projets de développement communautaire et régional en cours dans le Nord, des processus d’urbanisation, et des changements climatiques.
RESTING SAFE: Street Science for Environmental Justice in Houseless Communities
I'm collaborating on a community-based participatory research project called RESTING SAFE, which examines environmental justice issues in rest areas (or encampments) for houseless individuals. The project brings together houseless community leaders from two communities – one in Portland and one in Baltimore – and activist-researchers to investigate and intervene in environmental hazards in the places where houseless people are building homes. The project will provide houseless communities with information about their sites' precise types and levels of pollution, and a toolkit to help community members reduce risks themselves, or to push government agencies to do so. I'm honored to working with an amazing team that includes several former students on this project, funded by the Antipode Foundation and NSF.
I'm collaborating on a community-based participatory research project called RESTING SAFE, which examines environmental justice issues in rest areas (or encampments) for houseless individuals. The project brings together houseless community leaders from two communities – one in Portland and one in Baltimore – and activist-researchers to investigate and intervene in environmental hazards in the places where houseless people are building homes. The project will provide houseless communities with information about their sites' precise types and levels of pollution, and a toolkit to help community members reduce risks themselves, or to push government agencies to do so. I'm honored to working with an amazing team that includes several former students on this project, funded by the Antipode Foundation and NSF.
Racial Capitalism, Settler Colonialism, and the City
With Anne Bonds (UW Milwaukee) and Ted Rutland (Concordia University) I organized a set of sessions for the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers on the intersections between racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and processes of urban development. Originally scheduled for the 2020 meeting in Seattle and postponed to April 2021, we hosted two stellar set of papers on Property/Value and Development/Blues/Resurgence, and a panel on Reflections/Visions. With David Hugill (Carleton University) and my colleague at INRS Stéphane Guimont Marceau, I'm also organizing a pair of panels "Settler Colonial Urbanisms: Convergences, DIvergences, and Limits" for the Institute of Australian Geographers and New Zealand Geographical Society Joint Meeting in July 2021. To date, I've published an article in Geography Compass, entitled Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler-colonial city, and a book chapter, entitled Nullius no more? Valorising vacany through urban agriculture in the settler-colonial 'green city', which connect this theme to my work on urban agriculture and green gentrification.
With Anne Bonds (UW Milwaukee) and Ted Rutland (Concordia University) I organized a set of sessions for the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers on the intersections between racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and processes of urban development. Originally scheduled for the 2020 meeting in Seattle and postponed to April 2021, we hosted two stellar set of papers on Property/Value and Development/Blues/Resurgence, and a panel on Reflections/Visions. With David Hugill (Carleton University) and my colleague at INRS Stéphane Guimont Marceau, I'm also organizing a pair of panels "Settler Colonial Urbanisms: Convergences, DIvergences, and Limits" for the Institute of Australian Geographers and New Zealand Geographical Society Joint Meeting in July 2021. To date, I've published an article in Geography Compass, entitled Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler-colonial city, and a book chapter, entitled Nullius no more? Valorising vacany through urban agriculture in the settler-colonial 'green city', which connect this theme to my work on urban agriculture and green gentrification.
PAST PROJECTS | Projets réalisésThe Portland Black Gardens Project (2017 - 2020)
Supported with funding from by an Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Award, I'm working with Shantae Johnson and Arthur Shavers of MudBone Grown to collect stories of Black Portlanders who gardened during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. As part of the project, we're also conducting archival research on the Green Fingers Project, a community gardening initiative led by Ms. Viviane Barnett from 1968 to 1982, in Portland's Albina district, the historic heart of Black Portland. In thinking through this project, I authored an article for Geography Compass entitled "Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler-colonial city", and two additional manuscripts are currently in the pipeline. Mudbone Grown continues to collect interviews for the project. Keep up via our project website. |
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Urban agriculture, social, and environmental change in Metropolitan Montreal (2017 - 2021)
Funded by the climatology research institute Ouranos and the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, this project complements my work in Portland and Vancouver. My colleagues Éric Duchemin (AU/LAB) and Hiên Pham (UQÀM) and investigated UA's potential contributions to climate change adaptation in five municipalities in Metropolitan Montreal. Building on my methodological approach with the NSF project, the 3-year project, entitled "Agriculture urbaine comme infrastructure verte de résilience", integrated mapping, surveys, and interviews to assess UA's socio-spatial variability across the region and its contributions to household food consumption. Urban agriculture, eco-gentrification, and equity in the Sustainable City: Comparative study of Portland and Vancouver (2012 - 2020)
This project focused on the relationship between UA policy, practice, and political economy, with particular attention to the ways in which UA is entangled in processes of gentrification and investment in the “sustainable city”, and the role of UA advocates in policymaking forums. Funded by the National Science Foundation, I collaborated with Eugene McCann and Christiana Miewald at Simon Fraser University on a series of chapters and articles presenting the results of our comparative study (2015-2020) of these processes in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. Visit www.UrbanAg.info for details, publications, and updates. An article in IJURR rethinks urban agriculture governance based on our findings, and an article in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers lays out the some of the theoretical framework for understanding green gentrification. Four additional articles are in the pipeline. The project builds on pilot research (2012-2015), including a historical paper published in Urban Geography that I co-authored with former PhD students Erin Goodling and Jamaal Green, and a study published in Landscape and Urban Planning with my former graduate students Dillon Mahmoudi and Mike Simpson and visiting scholar Dr. Jacinto Santos, in which we mapped residential gardens in Portland and conducted a mail survey to determine consumption patterns, food access, and participation in food production. |
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Portland-Hartley Bay Exchange (2016 - 2019)
I worked with Dr. Max Ritts (Cambridge), POIC/Rosemary Anderson High School in Portland, and the Gitga'at First Nation in Hartley Bay, BC, Canada on a weeklong youth exchange, that brought together youth leaders from two very different communities to work together on environmental concerns and challenges. RAHS is a small alternative high school operated by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC), where diverse youth from low-income areas in Portland find mentorship and a fresh start. Hartley Bay is a remote community located 4 hours south of Prince Rupert on BC's North Coast. Youth from Portland traveled to Gitga'at territory to learn about the Gitga'at Nation's efforts to protect their ancestral homeland in the face of oil and gas production and a changing climate, while youth from Hartley Bay and Prince Rupert have traveled to Portland to learn about social and environmental challenges facing Portland's diverse communities.
Agriculture MTL-PDX: Comparing UA policy, practice, and participation in Montréal and Portland (2014 - 2016)
This project, funded by a grant from the Government of Québec, incorporated a research project and a field course/exchange conducted in Aug/Sep 2015 in partnership with Éric Duchemin at UQÀM’s AU/Lab and students from PSU, UQÀM, and UdeM. Situating our research within theoretical debates over collaborative planning and “post-politics” of sustainability, our PSU team evaluated recent participatory planning initiatives related to UA in both cities, as well as exploring the role of UA in gentrification in both cities and how the spectacle (as conceived by Guy Dubord) of UA also contributes to process of capitalist urbanization. The project also funded MUS student Claire Bach's thesis work on the spatial politics of UA in Montreal. Calire and I co-authored an article based on this work, forthcoming in Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space.
Survey of UA organizations and businesses in the US and Canada (2013 - 2014)
Mike Simpson and I conducted a survey of urban agriculture initiatives to better understand the practices, motivations, networks, labor and funding sources, and on-the-ground needs or UA organizations and businesses. We released a report of our preliminary results in 2014. Based on this survey, our article in Agriculture and Human Values identifies and describes six diverse but overlapping "motivational frames" - Entrepreneurial, Sustainable Development, Eco-Centric, Educational, DIY Secessionist, and Radical - employed by practitioners engaging in UA.
PDX Garden Stories (2015- 2016)
Over two years, my senior capstone students and I conducted interviews with 20 participants in various programs of the non-profit Growing Gardens. Transcripts of the interviews, as well, as short A/V clips of the various gardeners are posted to the project website, and also linked to Julian Agyeman's collection of various food justice initiatives across the country.
Who is at the table? Fostering anti-oppression practice through food justice dialogues (2013)
Developed together with masters students Jen Turner, Alex Novie, and Monica Cuneo, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies faculty Sally Eck, this participatory workshop series held in early 2013 provided Portland’s social justice and food systems activists the opportunity to collaborate, learn, network, and co-produce anti-oppression strategies with the goal of fostering the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class alliances necessary to transform the food movement into an integrated effort that emphasizes both food systems and social justice. It was funded by a grant from PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. You can read about the project in a chapter in an edited volume entitled Sustainable Solutions: Let Knowledge Serve the City.
Assessment and toolkit for the Urban Farm Collective (2012 - 2014)
My Senior Capstone class and I worked in collaboration with Portland’s Urban Farm Collective to analyze the impact of the organization’s work and to make recommendations for how to better engage a more diverse community in light of gentrification in Inner NE Portland. In 2014, we developed a food justice framework and outreach plan for the Collective.
Cultivating the Commons: Scaling up urban agriculture in Oakland (2008 - 2011)
This multi-year project was the focus of my doctoral dissertation work at UC Berkeley. My dissertation advisor at Berkeley was Nathan Sayre, and I also worked closely with my committee members Dick Walker, Jason Corburn, and Gary Sposito, and an advisory committee comprised of representatives from city agencies, community members, and non-profits. Research was funded in part by a mini-grant from the HOPE Collaborative and sponsored by City Slicker Farms. My team of undergraduate research assistants and volunteers and I inventoried vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland in order to assess its possible contribution to urban food production. The resulting report, Cultivating the Commons (released in November 2009, revised in 2010), has been used by the Oakland Food Policy Council to inform municipal food policy in its report, Transforming Oakland's Food System: A Plan for Action, and by the Oakland Climate Coalition for the Energy and Climate Action Plan. As soil contamination may be an obstacle to the expansion of urban agriculture at some sites, we conducted soil sampling at about 120 of the vacant sites we identified, and used GIS to map and analyze concentrations of lead (Pb). Preliminary assessment of 20 sites in July 2009 was funded by a pilot research grant from the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Analytical Lab in Davis, CA. Funding from the National Science Foundation allowed us to expand our sampling to 100 additional sites throughout Oakland in 2010. We also conducted an experiment at UC Berkeley's Oxford Tract Greenhouses and collected plant tissue samples at selected urban gardens to assess the bioavailability of Pb in urban soils. At the site-scale, we located potential "hot spots" where metals levels are high enough to be of concern; similarly, at the neighborhood- and municipal-scales, we identified areas in need of further assessment before food production proceeds. The project resulted in articles published in Applied Geography, Landscape & Urban Planning, and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development, Local Environment, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy & Society, and a chapter in the edited volume Cultivating Food Justice. I revisited the dataset for an article in published in Geoforum, in which I develop a "critical physical geography" of urban soil contamination.
Baseline agroecological assessment and farmer needs survey in Haiti's Central Plateau (2004 - 2005)
I worked with the French non-governmental organization Zanmi Lasante Paris, which operates in coordination with Partners in Health, to conduct a farmer needs assessment in the Plateau Central. We interviewed 200 farmers in more than a dozen villages, as well as conducted a baseline survey of agroecological characteristics and farming practices. The report (also published in French) was quoted in the opening lines in a National Geographic article on soil in Haiti. More importantly, the research laid the groundwork for a "training of trainers" workshop in June 2005 for extensionists working with two peasant organizations, ASEDECC and SOPABO. I developed the training materials (in Kreyòl) with fellow NCSU alum Arthur "Gill" Green (University of Guelph).
Sustainable soil management and regenerative agriculture in Senegal's Peanut Basin (2003 - 2004)
I took a semester off from my thesis research in North Carolina to work with The Rodale Institute, which at the time had an office in Thiès, Senegal. The Joor soils of Senegal's Peanut Basin are inherently low in organic matter, limiting yields of millet and other crops and threatening the food security of smallholders. We conducted a series of focus groups and interviews in eight villages to characterize site-specific fertility management practiced by farmers in the Peanut Basin. On-site measurements revealed little significant difference between the effects of compost and manure on peanut and millet growth, but significant increases over unamended areas. Similarly, chemical analysis revealed increased cation exchange capacity and nutrient concentrations in soils amended with compost or manure. Similarities in the chemical characteristics of compost and traditional pile manure (sentaare) suggest that development workers could emphasize improved pile management rather than promoting more labor-intensive composting. See the resulting article in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The Rodale Institute hired me the next year to identify and interview innovative farmers across Senegal for a series of thirteen stories, Sustainable in Senegal, published in Rodale's online NewFarm magazine.
Compost and vermicompost production and utilization in sustainable farming systems (2002 - 2004)
My MS research focused on compost production and use in sustainable farming systems. My MS thesis research at North Carolina State University's Department of Crop Science focused on compost production and utilization in an organic farming system in North Carolina and in a smallholder subsistence farming system in semi-arid West Africa. Working under Dr. Noah Ranells and Dr. Nancy Creamer, I conducted an experiment was conducted at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, NC, to compare methods of composting separated solid swine waste and various rates of wheat straw, and another experiment was conducted at CEFS and Central Carolina Community College's Sustainable Farming Program's Land Lab in Pittsboro, NC, to evaluate the integration of compost with cover crops, both common sources of fertility in organic farming systems. I synthesized some of this research in a Cooperative Extension bulletin. My work in Senegal (see above) also made it into my master's thesis.
I worked with Dr. Max Ritts (Cambridge), POIC/Rosemary Anderson High School in Portland, and the Gitga'at First Nation in Hartley Bay, BC, Canada on a weeklong youth exchange, that brought together youth leaders from two very different communities to work together on environmental concerns and challenges. RAHS is a small alternative high school operated by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC), where diverse youth from low-income areas in Portland find mentorship and a fresh start. Hartley Bay is a remote community located 4 hours south of Prince Rupert on BC's North Coast. Youth from Portland traveled to Gitga'at territory to learn about the Gitga'at Nation's efforts to protect their ancestral homeland in the face of oil and gas production and a changing climate, while youth from Hartley Bay and Prince Rupert have traveled to Portland to learn about social and environmental challenges facing Portland's diverse communities.
Agriculture MTL-PDX: Comparing UA policy, practice, and participation in Montréal and Portland (2014 - 2016)
This project, funded by a grant from the Government of Québec, incorporated a research project and a field course/exchange conducted in Aug/Sep 2015 in partnership with Éric Duchemin at UQÀM’s AU/Lab and students from PSU, UQÀM, and UdeM. Situating our research within theoretical debates over collaborative planning and “post-politics” of sustainability, our PSU team evaluated recent participatory planning initiatives related to UA in both cities, as well as exploring the role of UA in gentrification in both cities and how the spectacle (as conceived by Guy Dubord) of UA also contributes to process of capitalist urbanization. The project also funded MUS student Claire Bach's thesis work on the spatial politics of UA in Montreal. Calire and I co-authored an article based on this work, forthcoming in Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space.
Survey of UA organizations and businesses in the US and Canada (2013 - 2014)
Mike Simpson and I conducted a survey of urban agriculture initiatives to better understand the practices, motivations, networks, labor and funding sources, and on-the-ground needs or UA organizations and businesses. We released a report of our preliminary results in 2014. Based on this survey, our article in Agriculture and Human Values identifies and describes six diverse but overlapping "motivational frames" - Entrepreneurial, Sustainable Development, Eco-Centric, Educational, DIY Secessionist, and Radical - employed by practitioners engaging in UA.
PDX Garden Stories (2015- 2016)
Over two years, my senior capstone students and I conducted interviews with 20 participants in various programs of the non-profit Growing Gardens. Transcripts of the interviews, as well, as short A/V clips of the various gardeners are posted to the project website, and also linked to Julian Agyeman's collection of various food justice initiatives across the country.
Who is at the table? Fostering anti-oppression practice through food justice dialogues (2013)
Developed together with masters students Jen Turner, Alex Novie, and Monica Cuneo, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies faculty Sally Eck, this participatory workshop series held in early 2013 provided Portland’s social justice and food systems activists the opportunity to collaborate, learn, network, and co-produce anti-oppression strategies with the goal of fostering the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class alliances necessary to transform the food movement into an integrated effort that emphasizes both food systems and social justice. It was funded by a grant from PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. You can read about the project in a chapter in an edited volume entitled Sustainable Solutions: Let Knowledge Serve the City.
Assessment and toolkit for the Urban Farm Collective (2012 - 2014)
My Senior Capstone class and I worked in collaboration with Portland’s Urban Farm Collective to analyze the impact of the organization’s work and to make recommendations for how to better engage a more diverse community in light of gentrification in Inner NE Portland. In 2014, we developed a food justice framework and outreach plan for the Collective.
Cultivating the Commons: Scaling up urban agriculture in Oakland (2008 - 2011)
This multi-year project was the focus of my doctoral dissertation work at UC Berkeley. My dissertation advisor at Berkeley was Nathan Sayre, and I also worked closely with my committee members Dick Walker, Jason Corburn, and Gary Sposito, and an advisory committee comprised of representatives from city agencies, community members, and non-profits. Research was funded in part by a mini-grant from the HOPE Collaborative and sponsored by City Slicker Farms. My team of undergraduate research assistants and volunteers and I inventoried vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland in order to assess its possible contribution to urban food production. The resulting report, Cultivating the Commons (released in November 2009, revised in 2010), has been used by the Oakland Food Policy Council to inform municipal food policy in its report, Transforming Oakland's Food System: A Plan for Action, and by the Oakland Climate Coalition for the Energy and Climate Action Plan. As soil contamination may be an obstacle to the expansion of urban agriculture at some sites, we conducted soil sampling at about 120 of the vacant sites we identified, and used GIS to map and analyze concentrations of lead (Pb). Preliminary assessment of 20 sites in July 2009 was funded by a pilot research grant from the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Analytical Lab in Davis, CA. Funding from the National Science Foundation allowed us to expand our sampling to 100 additional sites throughout Oakland in 2010. We also conducted an experiment at UC Berkeley's Oxford Tract Greenhouses and collected plant tissue samples at selected urban gardens to assess the bioavailability of Pb in urban soils. At the site-scale, we located potential "hot spots" where metals levels are high enough to be of concern; similarly, at the neighborhood- and municipal-scales, we identified areas in need of further assessment before food production proceeds. The project resulted in articles published in Applied Geography, Landscape & Urban Planning, and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development, Local Environment, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy & Society, and a chapter in the edited volume Cultivating Food Justice. I revisited the dataset for an article in published in Geoforum, in which I develop a "critical physical geography" of urban soil contamination.
Baseline agroecological assessment and farmer needs survey in Haiti's Central Plateau (2004 - 2005)
I worked with the French non-governmental organization Zanmi Lasante Paris, which operates in coordination with Partners in Health, to conduct a farmer needs assessment in the Plateau Central. We interviewed 200 farmers in more than a dozen villages, as well as conducted a baseline survey of agroecological characteristics and farming practices. The report (also published in French) was quoted in the opening lines in a National Geographic article on soil in Haiti. More importantly, the research laid the groundwork for a "training of trainers" workshop in June 2005 for extensionists working with two peasant organizations, ASEDECC and SOPABO. I developed the training materials (in Kreyòl) with fellow NCSU alum Arthur "Gill" Green (University of Guelph).
Sustainable soil management and regenerative agriculture in Senegal's Peanut Basin (2003 - 2004)
I took a semester off from my thesis research in North Carolina to work with The Rodale Institute, which at the time had an office in Thiès, Senegal. The Joor soils of Senegal's Peanut Basin are inherently low in organic matter, limiting yields of millet and other crops and threatening the food security of smallholders. We conducted a series of focus groups and interviews in eight villages to characterize site-specific fertility management practiced by farmers in the Peanut Basin. On-site measurements revealed little significant difference between the effects of compost and manure on peanut and millet growth, but significant increases over unamended areas. Similarly, chemical analysis revealed increased cation exchange capacity and nutrient concentrations in soils amended with compost or manure. Similarities in the chemical characteristics of compost and traditional pile manure (sentaare) suggest that development workers could emphasize improved pile management rather than promoting more labor-intensive composting. See the resulting article in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The Rodale Institute hired me the next year to identify and interview innovative farmers across Senegal for a series of thirteen stories, Sustainable in Senegal, published in Rodale's online NewFarm magazine.
Compost and vermicompost production and utilization in sustainable farming systems (2002 - 2004)
My MS research focused on compost production and use in sustainable farming systems. My MS thesis research at North Carolina State University's Department of Crop Science focused on compost production and utilization in an organic farming system in North Carolina and in a smallholder subsistence farming system in semi-arid West Africa. Working under Dr. Noah Ranells and Dr. Nancy Creamer, I conducted an experiment was conducted at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, NC, to compare methods of composting separated solid swine waste and various rates of wheat straw, and another experiment was conducted at CEFS and Central Carolina Community College's Sustainable Farming Program's Land Lab in Pittsboro, NC, to evaluate the integration of compost with cover crops, both common sources of fertility in organic farming systems. I synthesized some of this research in a Cooperative Extension bulletin. My work in Senegal (see above) also made it into my master's thesis.
