Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Anthropological Examination of the Reorganization of Urban Space in Food Security and Redevelopment Efforts

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University of Kentucky doctoral student Megan Maurer, under the supervision of Dr. Kristin Monroe, will conduct this study of redevelopment. By understanding and assessing the efforts of community members, civic organizations, and local governments to transform their urban environments, this research will help identify strategies for more inclusive urban redevelopment. The research takes place in Southeast Michigan, an area characterized by crumbling urban infrastructures and bankrupt municipalities. Social scientists find socioeconomically devastated areas of the U.S. such as this particularly useful for studying the social and cultural impediments to redevelopment efforts.The purpose of this project is to investigate the strategies used by individuals from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to improve their food security. This project also asks how community efforts to transform urban space for productive ends are shaped by different socioeconomic experiences. This research will be conducted in a small city in Southeast Michigan. Using data from semi-structured interviews with local community stewards the researcher will explore four community food production efforts for case study. These case studies will use surveys, maps, in-depth interviews, and participant observations, to identify the connections between ideas about urban land use and their civic engagements. These methods will also be used to determine the role demographics and relationships to others play in shaping these connections. A group of individuals from the four case study neighborhoods that are not part of the organized food production efforts will be included as a comparison group. This project also advances scholarship on the ways working people and socially disadvantaged individuals engage with food security and other challenges in their daily lives. Finally, this study furthers anthropological and other scientific research on the connections between urban space, citizenship, and social change.