Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice

Justice, Power, and Politics

by Lana Dee Povitz

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, government cutbacks, stagnating wages, AIDS, and gentrification pushed ever more people into poverty, and hunger reached levels unseen since the Depression. In response, New Yorkers set the stage for a nationwide food justice movement. Whether organizing school lunch campaigns, establishing food co-ops, or lobbying city officials, citizen-activists made food a political issue, uniting communities across lines of difference. The charismatic, usually female leaders of these efforts were often products of earlier movements: American communism, civil rights activism, feminism, even Eastern mysticism. Situating food justice within these rich lineages, Lana Dee Povitz demonstrates how grassroots activism continued to thrive, even as it was transformed by unrelenting erosion of the country's already fragile social safety net.

Using dozens of new oral histories and archives, Povitz reveals the colorful characters who worked behind the scenes to build and sustain the movement, and illuminates how people worked together to overturn hierarchies rooted in class and race, reorienting the history of food activism as a community-based response to austerity. The first book-length history of food activism in a major American city, Stirrings highlights the emotional, intimate, and interpersonal aspects of social movement culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food

360 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 27, 2019

Reviews

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great summary of what four local NYC groups did to attempt to address hunger and food insecurity. It is written clearly and pretty easy to follow along, although it is dense. However, it lacks clarity on what to do after reading. What are the takeaways from the successes and failures of these groups? How have these groups actually impacted hunger or food insecurity in the long term? How do we move forward in creating lasting change? It seems like the author tried to convey that these local organizations did great work, but really, it made me realize how these groups did not necessarily “work locally, think globally”. It seems like food insecurity has only gotten worse since the ‘80s, and having these local groups are like bandaids on the problem. There was no conclusion, which leaves the readers with a big question mark.

[Cristina DelPrete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written history of food justice movements in different neighborhoods throughout the city.