Food Dignity: Successes and struggles in community food system action research

Introduction: Many communities have been tackling hunger, obesity, equity and other issues by expanding local engagement with and control of food systems. Some initiatives have been working for decades. Recently, health and nutrition academics and practitioners have become focused on learning from and supporting this work. Food Dignity - an action, research and education project - exemplifies such a collaboration (www.fooddignity.org). The coauthors of this paper are members of the Food Dignity team. Methods: This paper examines (a) the practice and potential of community-driven approaches to food security through five case studies of community food system projects located in California, Wyoming and New York; and (b) the struggles and successes of their collaboration with academic research partners in conducting this research. Community partners are each leveraging a funding package for community action research that includes community organizing staffing, steering committees, materials, and a community research budget. Academic partners are collaborating with them to tell stories of their work. Research methods include interviews and narrative inquiry analysis, participation and observation, minigrant tracking, file coding, and Photovoice. Results: Each project is working to build local control over and engagement with the food system. The actions, challenges, strategies and successes of these initiatives and of the research process will be highlighted. Discussion: We close with implications for (a) how such initiatives can and do contribute to community health and (b) how public and community health professionals can play supportive roles in their work.