Description

Presents an argument for a food justice-oriented rhetoric and literacy that shifts the emphasis in the local food movement from individualized conscious eater literacies to addressing the broader social, political, and cultural implications, histories, and power relations embedded in the food system.

Food Justice Rhetorics and Literacies provides a critical examination of the dominant rhetorical tropes and arguments of local food discourse and their exclusions. The author addresses that through understanding complex patterns of discrimination and social action in relation to land ownership and food production, we can begin to imagine and enact a more just and sustainable food system. This book explores and assesses periods in history when the U.S. public took an active role in agriculture through publicly-promoted, often federal and state subsidized gardening projects and widescale grassroots gardening efforts in times of crisis, thus building alternative agrarian literacies among the U.S. publics and ensuring a stable food supply during times of crisis.

The shift to a food justice-oriented rhetoric centers food activists, BIPOC farmers, community gardeners and policy advocates who are seeking to change systems of food production and distribution so that all can eat well.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Introduction: Engaging Food Justice Rhetorics and Literacies in Rhetoric and Writing Studies
1. Locating the “Crisis” Rhetorics and Literacies around Food and Farming
2. Who Is In and Who is Out? Alternative Food Networks, Conscious Eater Literacies, and the Rhetorics of Local Food
3. Racialized Rhetorics of Food Politics: Black Farmers, the Case of Shirley Sherrod, and Struggle for Land Equity and Access
4. Gardening for Victory: The Rhetorics and Literacies of Community Gardening
5. Toward Food Justice Rhetorics and Literacies in Precarious Times
References
Index
About the Author

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 04 Sep 2025
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 224
ISBN 9781978771338
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 15 b/w illustrations
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

ES
Author

Eileen E. Schell

Eileen E. Schell is Professor of Writing and Rheto…

Reviews

  • In her latest book Food Justice Literacies and Rhetorics, Professor Elieen Schell's intersectional approach to food justice applies incisive rhetorical and rich historical analysis to carefully chosen case studies, thereby reimagining the roles of writing and rhetoric scholars in food studies and offering new directions for scholarship, pedagogy, and everyday practices. In these ways, Schell provides an important argument about the significance of critical agricultural literacies to illuminate more accurate and representative histories of food justice and to illustrate ways forward to more just and inclusive food systems.

    Stephanie Wade, Full-Time Lecturer, Stony Brook University, USA

  • In Eileen's straightforward prose, she expertly challenges well-worn histories and dominant refrains, repurposing rhetorical voices to converse with BIPOC food justice advocates, rhetorically crystallizing issues of food politics to leave us less overwhelmed and more confident consumers. As each chapter built upon the next, I thought of more students and peers who will gain much from this read.

    Charlotte Hogg, Professor and Director of Composition, Texas Christian University, USA

  • With the acuity and depth readers have come to expect from Schell, Food Justice Rhetorics and Literacies leads rhetoric and literacy studies' contributions to interdisciplinary critical food and agriculture scholarship. Taking up a wide range of farming and food case studies, Schell smartly demonstrates how agriculture and food discourses host competing narratives about power, labor, and individual choice. Her in-depth analysis also illustrates how structures of discrimination and white supremacy maintain themselves in such contexts as public policy and popular food writing. As an intervention in food justice, this book will be taken up by students and researchers who seek to understand how persuasion operates in agriculture and food systems, as well as how equity and opportunity can be centered when we change the stories and practices needed to build food systems that work for all, especially the least enfranchised.

    Abby Dubisar, Associate Professor, Iowa State University, USA

Environment: Staging