North Stars of emancipation : California's diverse food and farming movements in times of racial reckoning / Antonio Roman-Alcalá

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Román Alcalá, Ramón, author.

Series:

Food, health, and the environment

Food, health and the environment

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nutrition policy--California--Citizen participation.

Nutrition policy.

Food--California.

Food.

Social movements--California.

Social movements.

Minorities--California--Social conditions.

Minorities.

Food--Movements.

Nutrition policy--Citizen participation.

Minorities--Social conditions.

California.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2026]

Summary:

"How greater racial inclusion can propel movements forward and help realize sustainable change, from a longtime political organizer and researcher. How we grow, harvest, distribute, and consume food is bound up with how we use (and abuse) environmental resources and how we achieve (or undermine) collective well-being. In North Stars of Emancipation, Antonio Roman-Alcalá finds in the radical experiments of new food movements the seeds of a world liberated from old, extractive systems, where a more equitable way of eating and living is possible. The book traces the transformation of California’s diverse food movements as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color have come to play a larger organizational role, especially at a time of toxic national politics. A new vision now guides these movements, rooted in the radical traditions of anarchism, Black radicalism, and Indigenous resurgence, yet focused on pragmatic solutions to the problems of market and state. In pursuing a North Star political ideal that rejects capitalism, colonialism, and state violence while prioritizing survival, California’s food movements have achieved greater collaboration among sectors, workers, and consumers, pointing toward a promising future. North Stars of Emancipation takes the rare step of analyzing movements as interconnected wholes. From their collective success, we learn how to move past an untenable present"-- MIT Press Direct

Contents:

Seeking the light of an emancipatory North Star during times of right-wing resurgence

What is emancipation, really? Exploring theories and practices of radicalism

The development of othering, capitalism, and state power in Californian food systems

Others no more : assimilating, valorizing, and differencing our way to emancipation

Racial reckoning in twenty-first-century US food movements

The challenges of solidarity : working across intersectional difference

Revolutionary thinking, practical doing : state and market strategies in food and farming efforts

Radicalizing food movements and principles for radical convergence

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (MIT Press Direct, viewed July 29, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Román Alcalá, Ramón North Stars of emancipation

ISBN:

9780262053297

0262053292

9780262053303

0262053306

OCLC:

1603200422

Access Restriction:

Some versions: Open access versions available from some providers open access