Feminist Reading
for the Festive Season
Part of FFJ for a Friend
What we’re digging into
We wanted to share a few of the resources that are making our brains and dreams bigger as the roller coaster that was 2021 comes to a close.
A podcast from the freshly minted Whetstone Radio Collective, Climate Cuisine explores how sustainable crops are used in similar climate zones around the world. In the first episode, journalist Clarissa Wei examines the increasingly important role of cassava in regions impacted by food security, natural disasters, and drought. We love her use of food to draw parallels across what, at first glance, appear to be very different contexts, in order to remind us of the common challenges we currently face.
Our research for MILK linked us up with the team behind this amazing podcast, which tells the stories of workers, farmers, and advocates working to build a fairer system in the world of US dairy. Their episodes are hopeful, action-oriented, and well-researched. Stay tuned for an upcoming post by their team on the FFJ blog in the new year, which will examine how worker-led movements are changing the dairy industry.
This new compendium tackles the power dynamics behind what type of knowledge counts as evidence for food systems transformation. It explores alternative forms of evidence such as Indigenous foodways, experiential knowledge, and wisdom, and unpack how funders, researchers, and policymakers can use them to take action on food systems change.
Let’s face it, holiday meals can get, well, heated (even if your uncle can’t handle his Tabasco). Historically, the discipline of philosophy and argumentation has privileged norms of masculine aggression. (This is evidenced by the language of war that is used to discuss debate: ‘piercing’ intelligence, ‘a mind like a steel trap’, ‘go for the jugular’, using ‘strong-armed tactics’, and more.) This analysis of different feminist perspectives on argumentation in the philosophy blog at Standford provides a range of alternative approaches to discourse and debate. Many emphasize extending an ethic of care to others in the conversation and viewing argumentation not as violence but rather as nurturing, given its importance to building strong families and communities.
What we’re saving for later
We’re still in the thick of the end-of-year bustle and haven’t gotten to a few things on our list yet. We’re going to be intentional about making the time to slow down and read closer to the end of December, and we hope that you’ll join us. Here’s what’s coming up on our reading & listening list for when we get the chance to wind down.
This is an anthology of essays, poetry, and art by 41 women at the forefront of the climate movement, edited by marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Project Drawdown editor Katharine Wilkinson. The New York Times reviewer calls it “a powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?”—and we’ll take all the hope we can right now.
James Beard, the Award-winning food writer Mayukh Sen honours the role of immigrant women in building the cuisine of a nation, through the untold stories of seven women who shaped American kitchens.
Recently nominated by the British Society of Magazine Editors as one of the best new magazines of the year, CHEESE is a gorgeously illustrated zine that puts people and produce at the heart of the stories. Their second issue just came out, and it looks like there’s a feature on poutine, another quintessentially Canadian dish, so consider us sold.