Book Chapter

Sustainability's incomplete circles: towards a just food politics in Austin, Texas and Havana, Cuba

Law, S, Lowell, J. T

2017

Overview

This chapter questions the use of sustainability discourses in urban agriculture projects, with a comparative study of Austin, Texas and La Habana, Cuba. Faced with a food security crisis in the 1990s, Cuba turned to a diversified and mostly organic agricultural system in order to feed its habitants. Austin also has a well-established community garden programme and a lot of positive press for its sustainable agriculture programmes. The case studies may seem different: the Austin case revolves around community resentment at the establishment and practices of urban farms, while the work in Cuba focuses on the inability of government-led sustainable production to meet the needs of many low-income communities. However, some comparable dynamics can be found. In both Austin and La Habana, the ways in which agricultural practices are deemed sustainable in the cultural and political discourses is predicated upon the ways in which food is produced, with less regard to continuing issues of food insecurity that urban agriculture has yet to redress. Still less attention is paid to the cultural politics of food: the ways in which race, class and gender can shape access to food choices, as well as have the capacity to shape political discourse around food. What this study finds in Austin and La Habana are similar sets of agricultural practices, as well as similar discourses towards their value for the community and the nation. The study also finds comparable outcomes in terms of the ways in which food can expose spatial and social divisions.

• Publisher: CABI,CAB International
• Subject: alternative farming / America / Antilles / APEC countries / Caribbean / Developed Countries / Developing Countries / eco-agriculture / ecological agriculture / food production / food security / gardening / Great Plains States of USA / Greater Antilles / Gulf States of USA / Latin America / North America / OECD Countries / organic culture / organic farming / politics / social order / social structure / Southern Plains States of USA / Southern States of USA / Southwestern States of USA / sustainability / United States of America / urban agriculture / USA / West South Central States of USA
• ISBN: 1780647328, 9781780647326