Abstract
The alternative food movement aims to alleviate racial and class inequalities in the conventional American food system by providing economically and socially sustainable markets that invigorate communities while providing access to environmentally safe, nutritious foods. While activists and organizers reach towards this ideal, many alternative food markets fall short, creating additional cultural barriers to food access that restrict participation among marginalized groups. Through ethnographic methods including participant observation and formal, semi-structured interviews, I examine the process through which these cultural barriers are created and persist in two urban farmers markets; both markets are located in or in very close proximity to food deserts and accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as food stamps). I find that one field site has been successful in integrating low-income, minority consumers into the market economy, while the other field site has not. I identify three salient narratives—norms of market participation, the concept of community, and perceptions of low-income consumers—that differ in content across markets. In addition, based on interviews and field notes, I describe the alternative food system experiences of low-income, racial minority consumers who reside in food deserts and or receive SNAP. I build on previous theories of cultural distinction and boundary maintenance in alternative food systems and offer several implications based on these findings.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
To ensure that economic barriers to participation were diminished in each market, I conducted a comparative analysis of food prices at each farmers market in my sample and at the nearest supermarket in the one-mile radius surrounding the market. The resultant data show that for similar items, prices at each market are comparable to those of the nearest supermarket.
“Morganic” is short for “more than organic.” This term implies that in addition to organic farming practices, growers participate in sustainable practices as well.
References
Alkon, Alison Hope. 2012. Black, White, and green: Farmers markets, race, and the green economy. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Alkon, Alison Hope, and Christie Grace McCullen. 2011. Whiteness and farmer’s markets: Performance, perpetuations…contestations? Antipode 43 (4): 937–959.
Allen, Patricia. 2008. Mining for justice in the food system: Perceptions, practices, and possibilities. Agriculture and Human Values 25 (2): 157–161.
Beagan, Brenda L., and Gwen E. Chapman. 2012. Meanings of food, eating and health among African Nova Scotians: “Certain things aren’t meant for Black folk”. Ethnicity & Health 17 (5): 513–529.
Bernard, Russell H. 2011. Research methods in Anthropology. Lanham: AltaMira Press.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2006. Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC..
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1985. The market of symbolic goods. Poetics 14 (1–2): 13–44.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown, Elizabeth, Sandrine Dury, and Michelle Holdsworth. 2009. Motivations of consumers that use local, organic fruit and vegetable box schemes in Central England and Southern France. Appetite 53 (2): 183–188.
Conner, David, Kathryn Colasanti, Brent R. Ross, and Susan B. Smalley. 2010. Locally grown foods and farmers markets: Consumer attitudes and behaviors. Sustainability 2 (3): 742–756.
Dahlberg, Kenneth A. 1986. New directions for agriculture and agricultural research: Neglected dimensions and emerging alternatives. Totowa: Rowman & Allanheld.
DeLind, Laura B. 2011. Are local food and the Local Food Movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars? Agriculture and Human Values 28 (2): 273–283.
Economic Research Service (ERS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 2013. Food Access Research Atlas. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/
Evans, Alexandra E., Rose Jennings, Andrew W. Smiley, Jose L. Medina, Shreela V. Sharma, Ronda Rutledge, Melissa H. Stigler, and Deanna M. Hoelscher. 2012. Introduction of farm stands in low-income communities increases fruit and vegetable among community residents. Health & Place 18 (5): 1137–1143.
Feenstra, Gail. 2002. Creating space for sustainable food systems: Lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values 19 (2): 99–106.
Fotopoulos, Christos, and Athanasios Krystallis. 2002. Organic product avoidance: Reasons for rejection and potential buyers’ identification in a countrywide survey. British Food Journal 104 (3): 233–260.
Frankenberg, Ruth. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Grace, Christine, Thomas Grace, Nancy Becker, and Judy Lyden. 2007. Barriers to using urban farmers' markets: an investigation of food stamp clients' perceptions. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 2 (1): 55–75.
Granovetter, Mark. 1985. Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology 91 (3): 481–510.
Guthman, Julie. 2003. Fast food/organic food: Reflexive tastes and the making of ‘yuppie chow’. Social & Cultural Geography 4 (1): 45–58.
Guthman, Julie. 2008. ‘If they only knew’: Color blindness and universalism in California alternative food institutions. The Professional Geographer 60 (3): 387–397.
Hinrichs, Clare C. 2000. Embeddedness and local food systems: Notes on two types of direct agricultural markets. Journal of Rural Studies 16 (3): 295–303.
Johnson, Randal. 1993. Editor’s introduction. The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature, ed. Randal Johnson, 1–28. New York: Columbia University Press.
Johnston, Josee, and Shyon Baumann. 2010. Foodies: Democracy and distinction in the gourmet foodscape. New York: Routledge.
Johnston, Josee, Michelle Szabo, and Alexandra Rodney. 2011. Good food, good people: Understanding the cultural repertoire of ethical eating. Journal of Consumer Culture 11 (3): 293–318.
Lamont, Michele, and Virag Molnar. 2002. The study of boundaries across the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 167–195.
Lamont, Michele, John Schmalzbauer, Maureen Waller, and Daniel Weber. 1996. Cultural and moral boundaries in the United States: Structural position, geographic location and lifestyle explanations. Poetics 24 (1): 31–56.
Larson, Nicole I., Mary T. Story, and Melissa C. Nelson. 2009. Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy foods in the U.S. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 36 (1): 74–81.
Lyson, Helena C. 2014. Social structural location and vocabularies of participation: Fostering a collective identity in urban agriculture activism. Rural Sociology 79 (3): 310–335.
Macias, Thomas. 2008. Working toward a just, equitable and local food system: The social impact of community-based agriculture. Social Science Quarterly 89 (5): 1086–1101.
Nousianien, Marko, Paivi Pylkkanen, Fred Saunders, Laura Seppanen, and Kari Mikko Vesala. 2009. Are alternative food systems socially sustainable? A case study from Finland. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 33 (5): 566–594.
Slocum, Rachel. 2007. Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geoforum 38 (3): 520–533.
Slocum, Rachel. 2008. Thinking race through corporeal feminist theory: divisions and intimacies at the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market. Social & Cultural Geography 9 (8): 849–869.
Trubek, Amy B., and Sarah Bowen. 2008. Creating the taste of place in the United States: Can we learn from the French? GeoJournal 73 (1): 23–30.
US Census. 2013. 2009–2013 American Community Survey. Washington D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Office.
Walker, Renee E., Christopher R. Keane, and Jessica G. Burke. 2010. Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. Health and Place 16 (5): 876–884.
Young, Candace R., Jennifer L. Aquilante, Sara Solomon, Lisa Colby, Mukethe A. Kawinzi, Nicky Uy, and Giridhar Mallya. 2013. Improving fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income customers at farmers markets: Philly food bucks, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2011. Preventing Chronic Disease 10:120356.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank David Smilde and the anonymous reviewers who provided thoughtful comments for improving my original manuscript. I would also like to thank Vaughn Schmutz, Nicole Peterson, Stephanie Moller, Roslyn Mickelson, Hedy Lee, Sarah Quinn, and Mette Evelyn Bjerre for their feedback and encouragement throughout this research project. I am also grateful to everyone I interviewed and interacted with when conducting this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Larimore, S. Cultural Boundaries to Access in Farmers Markets Accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Qual Sociol 41, 63–87 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-017-9370-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-017-9370-y