For our Group Action Project, my group decided to tackle the issue of food security. In order to host an educational, accessible and impactful event we decided to host a free documentary screening of “Food Justice: A Growing Movement,” a short documentary about a community in Oakland that is transforming and localizing their food system. This documentary covered various definitions… Read more »
When Professor Litfin read Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Law that Marries All Things,” the verse that resonated most with me was “the great chorus of parts.” In relation to the Gaia theory and our global perspective of consumption, planet Earth is the ultimate adaptive organism while humans, as a smaller living system, are like parasites on a host. The Earth… Read more »
As someone that does Lear in a different style than most everyone else I feel that the contemplative practice is a welcome change for the usual way teaching is done. Some may see this as strange and awkward but they need but trust in something new and try to use the new method of learning to explore new ideas and… Read more »
I’ll admit that I was slightly taken aback and heartily amused when Professor Liftin proposed such a meditative approach to consuming a raisin. It was perfect; the lights were dim, the mood was set, and after having just watched the contrasting videos on raisin production before and after industrialization, I was ready to eat that raisin. Granted, I’m a raisin fan…. Read more »
Blog Post 2: Contemplative Practice Contemplative practices have been integral part of the learning experience for Political Ecology of the World Food System. Making students engage in these practices has proven to be a unique teaching style, and in a course that is so ecologically integrative, these techniques have allowed the cohort to both understand the system better, and to… Read more »
Chocolate is a rich, tasty indulgence that I perceived to be universal. However, this week I learned that chocolate is not universal, it is a luxury and surprisingly the very people extracting the raw cacao have not been given access. In lecture 7, we watched a video of cacao farmers in the Ivory Coast that has never tasted chocolate. In… Read more »
As an athlete, sitting through lecture your mind wanders normally to food and especially when the topic is about food. Lecture began like most do. The clock strikes 12 and the first thought that enters my mind is whats for lunch? I will need something to help my body recover from the mornings rowing session and something that will help… Read more »
Racial discrimination is an issue that most people thought withered away especially with prominent events like the election of our first African-American president. However, events of recency have demonstrated that these movements are not dead, rather they have caught a second wind. The Color of Food by Raj Patel demonstrates that this discrimination has expanded into U.S. agriculture system in… Read more »
One way that the interconnectivity of topics is highlighted in this class is through contemplative practices, like the activities with the cocoa nib or the raisin. The activity with the cocoa nib was the most eye opening because of how much labor and exploitation that takes place from the time the cocoa is harvested to the time it is consumed… Read more »
Taiwan, a country suffers from China’s pressure in every perspectives within the global system, can “food” effect Taiwan’s relationship with China even though Taiwan’s political system still undergoing China’s compression?Even though China does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country but a province that belong to China, they still make business between those two. Food, is part of the business… Read more »