Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)
Department
Landscape Architecture
First Advisor
Larissa Belcic
Second Advisor
Ann Kearsley
Abstract
“Tethered by Nourishment” explores how the principles of food sovereignty could be spatially cultivated within an urban environment afflicted by a food apartheid. The urban environment I explore is the Elysian Fields Ave. neutral grounds (colloquial term for road medians) in New Orleans. Working with a series of food-generating landscapes, the proposal imagines multiple cultivation sites to support neighborhoods and communities struggling with fresh food access. These sites allow for varying levels of engagement from start-up farming plots for urban agriculturalists to food forests for more passive food collection. Approaching a multifaceted problem like equitable urban food access requires a multidimensional response. By providing varying levels of engagement with food systems in these spaces, communities can be empowered to create their own, self-defined systems of nourishment. Additionally, these spaces can and should nourish communal bonds, cultural heritage, and the overall health of the environments in which they are located.
Food Apartheid: A system of segregation that divides those with access to an abundance of nutritious food and those who have been denied that access due to systemic injustice. (Jensen, 2024)
Food Sovereignty: The right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. (La Vía Campesina, 1996)
Neutral Grounds: Colloquial term for road medians separating neighborhoods in New Orleans.
Recommended Citation
Bailey, Benjamin, "Tethered by Nourishment - Exploring Sovereignty within an Urban Food Apartheid" (2024). Masters Theses. 1266.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1266
Creative Commons License
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