FJAR Lab’s current Projects
The Understanding Global Food and Environmental Justice through Music Initiative (2022-ongoing)
(In collaboration with Mike Harrington)
Music can be used to understand and communicate about social justice as it relates to food, agriculture, and the environment. Communicating through music can strengthen and uplift food and environmental justice practice that is diverse in terms of epistemology, representation, and mode and open the door for deeper understandings of inequity and justice in ways that step away from Eurocentric insistence on linear and written communication to teach, exchange knowledge, or debate.
Building on public programs that we have organized through our roles in the Food Studies Program and The Tishman Environment and Design Center beginning in 2022, and now joined by the Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab, this initiative at The New School explores music as a way to understand structural and historical inequities in the food system, and as a source of strength and power among those fighting against oppression.
Events and speaking engagements to-date:
Online event: Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters: A Multi-Media Book Panel (2024)
Music can open the door for deeper understandings of inequity and justice in ways that step away from Eurocentric insistence on linear and written communication to teach, exchange knowledge, or debate. This event explored these modes of understanding and resistance through a multi-media discussion of Lynnée Denise’s 2023 book Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters (University of Texas Press).
Online event: Magdalena: a Threatened River of Music, Knowledge and Culture (2022)
This event hosted a conversation about the environment, history, and culture of the Magdalena River, the main River of Colombia. It featured speakers who have intimate knowledge of how the river has shaped not only the history and culture of Colombia but also the world.
Online event: Listen up! Understanding Food Justice and Environmental Justice Through Music (2022)
As part of the Food Studies’ program’s “Critical Food Studies and Social Justice” series and the Tishman Environment and Design Center’s Earth Week activities, “Listen Up!” centered ideas of decolonization while recognizing that there is debate about the use of this term beyond political decolonization and that music is not simply a commodity to be consumed, but rather, important and powerful to many communities and peoples’ understanding and communicating about the world, surviving injustices, and as a guiding light. The event was moderated by Dr. Kristin Reynolds, Chair of Food Studies, and Mike Harrington, Assistant Director at the Tishman Environment and Design Center.
Confronting Ethno-Racial Discrimination in Agricultural Work in France. (2022-25)
This project investigates ethno-racial inequities and discrimination in agricultural work in France — with particular focus on foreign and/or racialized workers in the South of France — through racial justice lenses more common in the United States. A key objective of the project is to document possible inequities, understand their social and spatial dimensions, and identify social and policy innovations to promote fairer working conditions. The project is currently funded by the Transatlantic Research Partnership, a program of FACE Foundation and the French Embassy, and by grants from the Zolberg Institute and the Provost’s Office at The New School.
FJAR Lab’s recent projects
Examining the Social Equity Implications of the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production's County Office and Granting Program through a Racial Equity Lens: A Pilot Study (2023-24)
This study sought to address informational gaps about the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) and additional 2018 Farm Bill urban agriculture provisions, as they relate to racial equity. The project was supported by funds from the Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center at Alcorn State University, Lorman, MS.
See our policy brief: Reynolds, K., Gottfried, C., & 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.
See the full report here.
Heritage Grains and Food Sovereignty in France (2021-2023)
As farmers seek to maintain their livelihoods and traditional agroecological practices in the context of climate change; as consumers are increasingly interested in products made from “heritage” or non-hybrid seeds, there is a potential for synergies to support food sovereignty and artisanal foods.
This project, from 2021-23, examined the potentially interrelated trajectories of: farmer-led stewardship of land races of cereal grains/blés de pays and re-emerging regional markets for locally-sourced bakery products in France. Participatory research in the Parisian and Grand Est regions of France included a collaboration with the French organic agriculture organization Bio en Grand Est and through Kristin’s role as Associated Researcher at the European School of Political and Social Sciences. Read a summary of the project in English/en français. Read the final report/rapport final en français ici.
Photo credit: Kristin Reynolds