Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Global Studies Program

Advisor(s)

Nadia El-Shaarawi

Second Advisor

Mary Beth Mills

Abstract

As guided by ethnographic fieldwork and the interdisciplinary discipline of Global Studies, this thesis works to trace food access inequalities in Lake County, Colorado and how they are felt and confronted both at the individual and communal level. Amidst the failures of global food systems and the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, rural communities, such as the field site of Lake County, Colorado, face additional challenges in accessing food that is culturally relevant, craved, and truly wanted. This thesis traces the dominant food inequalities in Lake County. In the face of these inequalities, I centralize the community food initiatives that take place at St. George Episcopal Church in Lake County. St George, as being both a space and a community, works to confront food inequalities through spearheading food initiatives within its sanctuary to make food more accessible for the greater Lake County community. As informed by ethnographic fieldwork in the setting of St. George Episcopal Church’s food initiatives, I consider and argue how St. George’s food initiatives create the opportunity 1) to name, place, and confront food inequalities, 2) offer individuals and the community opportunities to embolden their right to food choice freedom, and 3) provide a physical space to transgress culinary borderlands. This project draws on a vast literature of food studies to situate my research within. Ultimately this thesis serves, through sharing the story of what food can do and be at St. George, as an example of how tuning into a community’s needs can offer solutions to the shortcomings and failures of global food systems that are experienced individually and communally at the localized level.

Keywords

food studies, global studies, food access inequalities, food choice freedom, culinary borderlands, Lake County

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