Food Sovereignty Research Paper

Food Sovereignty and Environmental Arts in Las Nubes

Everything is interconnected with everything else, food and arts are no exception. Environmental arts and food sovereignty affect our lives so much that we could imagine. The two objects can give clues about our identity as an individual, as a community and our place in the society. Food also affects our health, the economy, and government policies whereas art serves as a way of communication to the world. It helps us to convey our ideas when words seem to be inadequate. For the purpose of this paper, I will connect food sovereignty and environmental arts as well as raise 2 critical questions from VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas by Deborah Barndt and The No-Nonsense

Food sovereignty and Environmental arts are concepts are heavily tied with society and culture. The types of food that are being grown and the art in a particular region reflect the characteristic of the community. The art and food represent the collective identity, history and culture of the people involved (Barndt, 2011). Moreover, the concept of food sovereignty and environmental arts are greatly affected by power struggle. Both terms are rooted in counter-hegemony, a notion that challenges the dominant groups that are in power (Barndt ,2011). Counter- hegemony challenges mainstream ideas in order to correct beliefs and assumptions regarding food and arts (Barndt 2011). Environmental art focuses on whole process, from the creations to its presentation while Food sovereignty, on the other hand, focuses on the production. Although the terms represent the whole community, Food sovereignty puts emphasis on the farmers and food producers (Roberts, 2013). The singular focus of food sovereignty came from the reassertion of food production due to the widespread propagation of food security, the idea that food is a commodity and consumer’s right (Roberts, 2013). Food sovereignty can use

According to Wayne Roberts (2013), food sovereignty gives great importance to the farmer’s rights to counter food security that highlights the consumer’s rights. I recognize that the term food sovereignty is similar to feminism as it empowers the oppressed for equity and justice. However, I believe that the heavy emphasis on one over the other is inaccurate representation of the ideal food system, where the public depends on to the farmers for food and the producers rely on the buyers to purchase their goods. I think that post structural theorists should come up with a term that has an equal representation of producers and consumer, as the relationship is mutualistic, one cannot survive without the other. Like community arts and body/mind, people try to separate the two concepts; however they fail to realize that these terms are interconnected and