The Stories Behind Atlanta Food Growing: Oral History and Exhibition as Research Method Restricted; Files Only
Packard, Ezra (Spring 2024)
Abstract
Existing research on food growing in Atlanta, which is geographically and temporally variable and highly intertwined with race and class, lacks intimate, diverse, and embodied accounts of how and why people grow food. Over the course of 2023, I recorded eight oral history interviews with urban agriculturalists and local food system workers in Atlanta to record more intimate and diverse perspectives on Atlanta food gr owing. The resulting interviews powerfully engaged how community building, racial, religious, and gender identities, and political beliefs shape how and why people farm. While filming these interviews, I realized that I would be foregoing an opportunity, and perhaps an obligation, if I tried to translate these powerful and embodied stories to others merely through text. This thesis investigates how collaborative and visual ethnographic methods can help people engage with stories experientially, and how this might change peoples’ knowledge of and investment in life histories. I created seven collaborative and/or visual projects - a digital archive, short film, sewing circle, collaborative quilt, community exhibition, food demonstration, and embroidered napkins - to translate the emotional resonance of these oral histories by bringing them closer to community members. This written document is one part of a larger thesis which aims to foster community engagement with this oral history archive. Ultimately, I argue that oral history and collaborative and visual anthropological methods can strengthen relationship building and create new connections between community members with varied backgrounds and with narrators, increase personal investment and embodied engagement in stories, and de-centralize intellectual authority and meaning making in anthropological research.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Project Overview......................................................................................1
Studying Urban Agriculture in Atlanta.............................................................4
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Basis for Oral History...............................................................................12
Collaborative and Visual Anthropological Method.............................................16
Chapter 3: Methodological Process
Interview Procedure.................................................................................21
Interview Reflection.................................................................................22
Chapter 4: Collaborative Artwork and Community Engagement
Digital Archive..................................................................................26
Short Film........................................................................................29
Collaborative Sewing Circle..................................................................30
Collaborative Quilt.............................................................................34
Food Demonstration.............................................................................40
Takeaway Napkins...............................................................................42
Piedmont Park Community Exhibition......................................................44
Chapter 5: Conclusion.......................................................................................50
About this Honors Thesis
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File download under embargo until 20 August 2025 | 2024-04-12 13:25:45 -0400 | File download under embargo until 20 August 2025 |
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