Food for 'us'

Abstract

Despite international efforts to combat world food problems, the number of hungry people in the world has actually increased. In February 2008, I became the Garden Coordinator for Common Ground, a progressive resource center in Athens, GA. Using this opportunity to conduct research, I hoped to see whether a small-scale food garden can help to create a new sense of community among the participants despite individual differences in political values. Using alternative methodologies, such as Participatory Action Research (PAR), I found that while we may not have directly fed hungry people in the local area, growing food was still a radical activity because it aligns with five main areas of anarchism: freedom, empowerment, autonomy, mutualism, and praxis. Thus, anarchist theory can help to frame the actions of the growers, while also providing a way of understanding the broader role of community gardens in constructing a new and better future.