(Re)Visiting the Corner Store: Black Youth, Gentrification, and Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Health food access continues to be a focus of research, policy, and activism on a global scale. In the USA, healthy corner store initiatives seek to improve food access and health outcomes, with particular attention to urban, low-income neighborhoods where Black and Latinx populations reside. However, a nutritional perspective alone deflects attention from changing contexts and from the meaning of stores for residents. As cities gentrify, who will these renovated corner stores serve? Do they abet or stem displacement? How do locals “make sense” of themselves and their relationships through corner stores? These questions urge attention to corner (or convenience) retailers from a critical and relational perspective, one that addresses power dynamics such as race and racism as well as the role relationships may play. In this chapter, I visit three corner stores with African-American and Afro-Latinx youth in their gentrifying neighborhood. Their experiences in Austin, Texas illustrate demographic shifts and how corner stores can be sites of Black relationship- and self-making. I draw on Black geographies scholarship and the food sovereignty movement to underscore how relationships have already transformed local marketplaces. Throughout, I consider possibilities for research and practice that reimagine corner stores beyond food access.