| Description |
The question which guided this research was: What are the food stories of Peace Corps Volunteers who have eaten with others in a community food system and returned to feeding themselves in the Global Industrial Food System? Systems theory was this research's conceptual framework. Food stories from Returned Peace Corps Volunteers were elicited through story circles, a non-directive method of qualitative narrative enquiry in which my participants got to know one another, talked about their food experiences in Peace Corps and afterward, and then told their whole, individual Peace Corps food journey stories. Two story circles were conducted, and their transcripts analyzed through emergent coding for narrative themes in common. These narrative themes in common included-from encountering a community food system, adjusting to it, and re-entering the Global Industrial Food System-first, experiencing a loss of control due to both the food environment and community-ness of food within a community food system; second, adjusting by reclaiming control, and experiencing a widening of what counted as food; and, third, the necessity to reconcile being a changed person with re-entering the Global Industrial Food System, experiencing intense overwhelm from the food environment, and experiencing a new narrowing of what counted as food. These findings were explained and contextualized within coloniality, capitalism, and industrialism-developmentalism, some of the dominant narratives or the root causes of the global crises of our age. Finally, inferences for community leaders working to build community food systems were drawn from these findings. |
