Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab

The Food and Social Justice Action Research (FJAR) Lab at The New School builds on Dr. Kristin Reynolds’ long-standing work with community-based food systems and social justice organizations and institutions through action research and collaborations.
The FJAR Lab aims to contribute to racial and economic justice in the food system through critical and participatory action research – in New York City and State, nationally and internationally. We work for a dignified food system for all.

Kristin Reynolds, Ph.D.

The FJAR Lab’s Founding Director Dr. Kristin Reynolds is a critical food geographer and educator in New York City. She brings her focus on social justice in the global food system to her research, teaching, public speaking, and consulting.
Kristin has worked with many community-based nonprofit organizations and small-scale farms through her ***research***, **teaching**, and ***consulting***. Her ***scholarship*** *and* ***action research*** focus on informing the creation of socially just food systems in urban and rural spaces.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

2017-07-05%2B09.35.37%2Bcopy.jpg — Research focus

One branch of her research examines **social equity** dimensions of **urban agriculture and food policy**, about which she has researched and published extensively.
A second branch of her scholarship is **participatory research** and **scholar activism**, including work with numerous community-based food and social justice organizations, and as co-founder and coordinator of the American Association of Geographers Food and Agriculture Specialty Group’s Food Justice Scholar-Activist/Activist Scholar community of practice.

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Services

consulting

Program evaluation | Curriculum design
Policy and funder research

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Public Speaking

Kristin speaks regularly in a variety of venues in the United States and internationally.

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Publications

Kristin’s scholarship and activism focus on informing the creation of socially just food systems in urban and rural spaces. She has published extensively on these themes, including numerous articles and books about urban agriculture, food justice, and environmental justice.

Select recent publications:

Reynolds, K., Gottfried, C., Thomas, T., and Smith, C. L. 2024. “Examining the Social Equity Implications of the USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Granting Program and Urban County Offices through a Racial Equity Lens: Final Report from a Pilot Study.”
Reynolds, K., Gottfried, C., and Thomas, T. 2024. Racial equity and the USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture granting program and urban offices [Policy brief]. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Advance online publication, open access here.
Hammelman, C., Levkoe, C., and Reynolds, K., eds. (Equal authorship.) 2024. Radical Food Geographies: Power, Knowledge and Resistance. Bristol University Press, Food & Society: New Directions series. UK.
Darly, S. et Reynolds, K. (Equal authorship) (2023) "Produire des aliments en ville/Politiser l’alimentation en contexte néolibéral. Montée en puissance de l’agriculture urbaine commerciale et nouvelle question agraire à Paris et New York à la fin des années 2010,” in Inégalités et Rapports de Pouvoir en Ville: Actualité de la critique urbaine. Clerval, A., Gardesse, C. et Rivière, J. eds.

Reynolds, K. “Soberanía alimentaria en un contexto de violencia estructural: poder, escala y resolución en los Estados Unidos de América,” (Food sovereignty in the context of structural violence: power, scale, and resolve in the United States of America.) in the edited volume Justicia y soberanía alimentaria en las Américas. Desigualdades, alimentación y agricultura. Prunier et al., eds. (2020). UNAM; CEMCA; École Urbaine de Lyon; y Fundación Henrich Boëll. Fall 2021.
Block, D. and Reynolds, K. (Equal authorship) (2021) Funding a Peoples’ Food Justice Geography? Community–Academic Collaborations as Geographic Praxis. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2020.1841603.

Her first book Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City, (2016; University of Georgia Press, with co-author N. Cohen), examines the work of people of color and women to create more socially just systems, and the possibilities for scholarship to support such initiatives.