GATHER: Food Justice and Nourishment in an AntiBlack World | Jackson Chair Lecture

Bill Daniel Student Center
1311 S. 5th St.
Waco, TX 76706
The John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America & Professor of History, Dr. Felipe Hinojosa, would like to present a free and open to the public lecture, featuring Dr. Ashanté Reese, Associate Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas Austin.
The lecture will be held on February 19th, 2025, in Barfield Drawing Room at the Student Union Building.
Dr. Ashanté Reese's lecture titled "GATHER: Food Justice and Nourishment in an AntiBlack World" will discuss a theory of change, food justice has remarkably shifted our understandings of the relationships between space, access, and the body. Shifting away from conceptualizations that blame individuals, the most radical conceptualizations of food justice point us toward systemic change, noting the ways racism is intertwined in local and global food systems. The work of theorizing the structures that influence our lives is a necessary and important part of working toward change. However, in these efforts to make structural change, how Black people imagine and create responses to these structures that are animated in everyday practice is often overlooked. This talk asks the question: what do we miss if we do not put food and our quest for justice within a broader framework of nourishment?
Focused on Black gatherings—gardens, family reunions, repasts, and mutual aid efforts—this talk explores the ways Black people gather in the midst of anti-Black violence to nourish ourselves and each other. Central to this exploration are the spaces that Black people imagine, create, and inhabit to mark our resilience and love for each other—often with food in tow. For Black people in particular, food is a necessity for sustaining the social body. Preparing, distributing, and serving food become significant markers of human agency and hope. This paper argues that lessons embedded in Black gatherings can be applied to growing (yet fractured) food justice movements.
Dr. Ashanté Reese is an Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas Austin. Dr. Reese works at the intersection of critical food studies and Black geographies, examining the ways Black people produce and navigate food-related spaces. Animated by the question, who and what survives?, Dr. Reese’s work has focused on the everyday strategies Black people employ while navigating inequity.