The Pragmatic Pyramid: John Dewey on Gardening and Food Security

1
The Pragmatic PyramidJohn Dewey on Gardening
and Food Security

• Shane J. Ralston, Ph.D.
• Penn State University-Hazleton

2
Outline of the Paper

• Background on Dewey and gardening
• How we might secure our food system
• Presentation of five narratives about
  gardening/food justice and related problems (esp.
  with the last three)
• Conclusion a tentative pragmatist/Deweyan model
  of food security The Pragmatic Pyramid

3
Dewey on Gardening Pedagogy and Politics

• Education
• Laboratory School at the University of Chicago
• Alice Waters Edible Schoolyard Project (U.S.)
• Alexander Kitchen Garden Program (Australia)
• Politics
• New immigrants/nativism/identity
• Community gardening
• Guerrilla gardening
• Community
• Communication/common
• Publics/civic turn/dynamic group pluralism
• Hilda Kurtz, Mary Beth Pudup

4
Securing our Food System

• What is a food system?
• What is the food movement?
• What is food insecurity?
• What is food justice?
• The changing food security agenda
• Stage 1 Global food security
• Stage 2 Community food security
• Stage 3 Glocal food security

5
Five Gardening/Food Justice Narratives

• Narrative 1
• Fighting the good fight against the Neoliberal
  establishment
• Narrative 2
• Keeping the multinational food companies out of
  our gardens!
• Narrative 3
• Greedy gardeners and a looming ecological crisis
• Narrative 4
• Class and race-based paternalism in the food
  movement
• Narrative 5
• Food movement activism and eating disorders

6
ConclusionWhy a Pragmatic Pyramid?