Join us for our next workshop!

White Females* in Food Justice: Maintaining or Challenging the System?

Sunday, August 10, 1-5pm

$35-60 sliding scale (work trade and scholarships available)

Location given upon registration (near W Oakland BART)

Description:

Are you passionate about food justice?

Do you lead, work at, volunteer at, or otherwise support a food justice organization in your neighborhood or community?

Do you sometimes question if the food justice work you are involved in is only a band-aid solution to deeper, more systemic problems?

In this interactive workshop, the White Noise Collective will lead a guided exploration of what Paul Kivel terms “the buffer zone,” a range of jobs and occupations that structurally serve to maintain the wealth and power of the ruling class by acting as a buffer between those at the top of the pyramid and those at the bottom. The buffer zone serves a threefold function: taking care of people, keeping hope alive, and controlling people. In this workshop, we will question to what extent our involvement in the food justice movement (in all its forms: food security, food justice, and food sovereignty) exists in the buffer zone.

We will focus on common patterns among those socialized as white females* and how that influences our food justice work. We will dynamically interweave examination of systemic analysis, historical patterns, and our individual participation and insight. How are we as white females* within the food justice movement maintaining the status quo, and what potentials and models exist for subversion within the buffer zone to shake the system towards greater equity and justice?

*What we mean by “white female”: When we say “white woman,” we are not necessarily referring to a personal identity. We are referring to a dominant or mainstream identity with certain images, messages and narratives that have been used to uphold systems of oppression.

We gear our work at the intersection of white privilege and gendered oppression, but we understand that not everyone navigating at this intersection identifies with these terms. We invite participation from people who do not specifically identify as white or female and we aim to hold a space that respects participants who have come from a broad spectrum of racial and gender identities, including those who identify as genderqueer, transgender, mixed race or who identify as having experienced white/light-skin privilege and gender(ed) oppression.

 Register Here.