scholarly journals Wayne Roberts: Food systems thinker, public intellectual, “actionist”

Author(s):  
Patricia Ballamingie ◽  
Charles Levkoe

Wayne Roberts (1944–2021) was a food systems thinker, public intellectual, and “actionist.” This text was developed from a series of oral history interviews conducted between December 2020 and January 2021. It touches upon several of the key themes Wayne addressed during the interviews: adopting a food systems approach; employing the power of ideas; identifying solutions and being propositional; acknowledging progress for political credit; enhancing impact through media, old and new; working strategically to “seed” then “tip”; playing ball to influence government; and, forming alliances with academics and other champions. In addition, we provide selected links to additional resources from Wayne himself. In this article, which inaugurates the Interviews section of Canadian Food Studies/La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation, we aim to do justice to the gift of Wayne’s experiences and knowledge by sharing a selection and synthesis of his words.

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roni A. Neff ◽  
Linnea I. Laestadius ◽  
Susan DiMauro ◽  
Anne M. Palmer

Urban food systems have changed considerably over the past half century. Older adults’ descriptions of place-based, personal food system history can help inform student learning and may contribute to expert understanding of food system change. Structural and social shifts in food purchasing and consumption contribute to diet-related disease and loss of historical food cultures in cities. Modern efforts to improve food systems are rarely informed by history, despite the potential benefits. Students performed oral history interviews with Baltimore older adults. Transcripts were analyzed using an inductive grounded theory approach. Interviewees described a shift from food they perceived as natural and healthy to food seen as lacking freshness, with additives and poor flavor. Many mistrusted the food industry including retailers. Some emphasized benefits of modern changes such as reduced preparation time. Despite low incomes, interviewee concerns went well beyond food prices. We describe and reflect on insights from the oral histories, while presenting a case study of the use of oral history in graduate education. To our knowledge, this is the first paper describing oral history with older adults focused on the food system.


2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1035-1055 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIRPA TENHUNEN

AbstractThis article examines the rise of dowry system in Janta, a West Bengali village in the Bankura district, where the dowry payments are a relatively new phenomenon. The oldest generation in Janta had experienced times when no demands for money or other gifts had been made during marriage arrangements, but since the 1950s huge dowry payments have become the central financial transactions in the region. In addition to oral history interviews on dowry practices, I draw from my research on the changes in caste, gender and class relationships in the village. I argue that the dowry payments do not merely represent economic considerations in a class conscious society, but that they reflect a rearticulation of both the tradition and market, of gender, ritual, and class identities, and that paying attention to the multiplicity and local variation of dowry practices provides a key to its understanding.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-224
Author(s):  
Bilge Deniz Çatak

Filistin tarihinde yaşanan 1948 ve 1967 savaşları, binlerce Filistinlinin başka ülkelere göç etmesine neden olmuştur. Günümüzde, dünya genelinde yaşayan Filistinli mülteci sayısının beş milyonu aştığı tahmin edilmektedir. Ülkelerine geri dönemeyen Filistinlilerin mültecilik deneyimleri uzun bir geçmişe sahiptir ve köklerinden koparılma duygusu ile iç içe geçmiştir. Mersin’de bulunan Filistinlilerin zorunlu olarak çıktıkları göç yollarında yaşadıklarının ve mülteci olarak günlük hayatta karşılaştıkları zorlukların Filistinli kimlikleri üzerindeki etkisi sözlü tarih yöntemi ile incelenmiştir. Farklı kuşaklardan sekiz Filistinli mülteci ile yapılan görüşmelerde, dünyanın farklı bölgelerinde mülteci olarak yaşama deneyiminin, Filistinlilerin ulusal bağlılıklarına zarar vermediği görülmüştür. Filistin, mültecilerin yaşamlarında gelenekler, değerler ve duygusal bağlar ile devam etmektedir. Mültecilerin Filistin’den ayrılırken yanlarına aldıkları anahtar, tapu ve toprak gibi nesnelerin saklanıyor olması, Filistin’e olan bağlılığın devam ettiğinin işaretlerinden biridir.ABSTRACT IN ENGLISHPalestinian refugees’ lives in MersinIn the history of Palestine, 1948 and 1967 wars have caused fleeing of thousands of Palestinians to other countries. At the present time, its estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees worldwide exceeds five million. The refugee experience of Palestinians who can not return their homeland has a long history and intertwine with feeling of deracination. Oral history interviews were conducted on the effects of the displacement and struggles of daily life as a refugee on the identity of Palestinians who have been living in Mersin (city of Turkey). After interviews were conducted with eight refugees from different generations concluded that being a refugee in the various parts of the world have not destroyed the national entity of the Palestinians. Palestine has preserved in refugees’ life with its traditions, its values, and its emotional bonds. Keeping keys, deeds and soil which they took with them when they departed from Palestine, proving their belonging to Palestine.


Author(s):  
Shailesh Shukla ◽  
Jazmin Alfaro ◽  
Carol Cochrane ◽  
Cindy Garson ◽  
Gerald Mason ◽  
...  

Food insecurity in Indigenous communities in Canada continue to gain increasing attention among scholars, community practitioners, and policy makers. Meanwhile, the role and importance of Indigenous foods, associated knowledges, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014) that highlight community voices in food security still remain under-represented and under-studied in this discourse. University of Winnipeg (UW) researchers and Fisher River Cree Nation (FRCN) representatives began an action research partnership to explore Indigenous knowledges associated with food cultivation, production, and consumption practices within the community since 2012. The participatory, place-based, and collaborative case study involved 17 oral history interviews with knowledge keepers of FRCN. The goal was to understand their perspectives of and challenges to community food security, and to explore the potential role of Indigenous food knowledges in meeting community food security needs. In particular, the role of land-based Indigenous foods in meeting community food security through restoration of health, cultural values, identity, and self-determination were emphasized by the knowledge keepers—a vision that supports Indigenous food sovereignty. The restorative potential of Indigenous food sovereignty in empowering individuals and communities is well-acknowledged. It can nurture sacred relationships and actions to renew and strengthen relationships to the community’s own Indigenous land-based foods, previously weakened by colonialism, globalization, and neoliberal policies.


Author(s):  
Nicole L. Immler

Wachsende Oral History-Archive weltweit beherbergen abertausende von Interviews, zur Gewaltgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts ebenso wie zur Sozialgeschichte verlorener wie gegenwärtiger Lebenswelten. Das digitale Zeitalter macht viele dieser Interviews öffentlich zugänglich. Doch welche Herausforderungen ergeben sich daraus für Wissenschaft und Lehre? Um diese Frage geht es in diesem Aufsatz. An der Universität für Humanistik in Utrecht unterrichte ich das Fach „Narrative Research and Oral History: Theory, Method and Practice“. In meinem Seminar sprechen Zeitzeugen und Zeitzeuginnen durch ihre Egodokumente zu den Studierenden. Der Kurs bringt Selbstzeugnisse, Oral History und narrative Theorie in einen Dialog und erschließt damit den Studierenden die narrative Dimension des menschlichen Daseins. Ich zeige, in welcher Weise narrative (Erzähl-)Theorien hilfreich sind, um Oral History-Interviews in ihrer Komplexität zu analysieren; um simplifizierte Identitätskonstruktionen oder Zuschreibungskategorien wie „Generation“ oder „Trauma“ kritisch zu reflektieren sowie Potentiale und Risiken in Narrativen zu verorten. Mit diesem Aufsatz möchte ich auch der Debatte über das „Re-Using“ von Oral History aus digitalisierten Datenbanken einen Impuls geben.


2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Coper

Geoffrey Sawer was the Foundation Professor of Law at The Australian National University, appointed in 1950 at the age of 39. He was a pioneer in the understanding of law in a broader context, especially at the intersection between law and politics, and his fluid and incisive writing has been a major influence on succeeding generations of academics, practitioners and judges. Drawing on Sawer's writings, oral history interviews and private papers, Michael Coper makes an affectionate biographical sketch of this outstanding scholar and warm and genial human being. In particular, he explores how Sawer's scholarship stands up today, when so much has changed in the legal and political landscape; what is enduring and what is transient in a life's work; and what lessons we can draw when we look at law and life through the lens of biography.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Arita Balaram

This study used participatory oral history and digital archiving to explore two interrelated questions: How do Indo-Caribbean women and gender-expansive people across generations experience processes of storytelling? What are the challenges and possibilities of oral history and digital archiving for constructing alternative histories and genealogies of resistance? In the first phase of the study, twelve Indo-Caribbean women and gender-expansive people across generations participated in an oral history workshop where they were introduced to oral history methods, co-created an interview guide, conducted oral history interviews of one another, and engaged in collective reflection about processes of storytelling. In the second phase, four co-authors of a community-owned digital archive participated in semi-structured interviews about their work to craft new narratives of diasporic resistance rooted in the everyday stories of Indo-Caribbean women and gender-expansive people. In this paper, I analyze how Indo-Caribbean women and gender-expansive people practice resistance by breaking silences in their communities around gender-based oppression, shift norms through producing analyses of their own stories, and reshape community narratives. Furthermore, I explore how oral history participants and co-authors of a digital archive understand the risks associated with sharing stories, raising the ethical dilemmas associated with conceptualizing storytelling as purely liberatory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Schneider

Beginning in 1944, Soviet authorities arrested former Jewish Council members of different ghettos and put them on trial for collaboration with the Axis powers. This case study examines the 1944 trials of Meir Teich and Isaak Sherf, two leading figures of the Shargorod ghetto’s Jewish administration. Drawing on trial documents, oral history interviews and memoirs, this article focuses on two aspects: how Soviet courts selectively accepted support for the partisans as mitigating circumstances, and how survivor networks among the witnesses influenced the trials. These aspects are discussed in the context of the (re-)Sovietization of formerly occupied territories, in this case Transnistria, the Romanian occupation zone.


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