Our primary research question was: how do, can and should communities create more sustainable, equitable and food secure communities? Our secondary one was: what are means for creating more equitable community-university collaborations in research, action and education?

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We learned about both by doing. For the first question, we relied upon the collective decades of expertise and experience the five community-based organizations (CBOs) brought to the table. Also, we traced the work of the CBOs and how each invested its sub-award from Food Dignity over the five years of our collaboration (Woodsum 2018; Porter 2018). For the second, we learned via striving for such relations in our own collaborations.

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We primarily used multiple case study research methods to document and learn from actions (Porter 2018), including developing a collaborative version of pathway modelling (Hargraves & Denning 2018). The work of the CBOs was our primary unit of analysis in the first question. Our collaboration itself was the focal point for analysis in the second question.

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In addition, we examined the minigrant programs each CBO developed (Hargraves 2018) and conducted some quantitative agroecological research (see, e.g., Conk & Porter 2016; Gregory, Leslie & Drinkwater 2016).  

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Resources

• Woodsum (2018). The cost of community-based action research: Examining research access and implementation through the Food Dignity project community support package. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(Supp. 1). https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.019.

• Porter (2018). Triple-rigorous storytelling: a PI’s reflections on devising case study methods with five community-based food justice organizations. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(Supp. 1). 

• Hargraves & Denning (2018). Visualizing expertise: Collaborative pathway modeling as a methodology for conveying community-driven strategies for change. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(Supp. 1). 

• Hargraves (2018). Learning from community-designed minigrant programs in the Food Dignity project. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(Supp. 1).

• Conk & Porter (2016). Food gardeners’ productivity in Laramie, Wyoming: more than a hobby. American Journal of Public Health,106(5): 854-856.

• Gregory, Leslie, & Drinkwater (2016). Agroecological and socioeconomic characteristics of New York City community gardens: Contributions to urban food security, ecosystem services, and environmental education. Urban Ecosystems, 19(2)763-794.

• Tracing the Paths: Telling Stories of Food Dignity (short documentary) by Matthew Luotto with StoryCenter.

• Pelletier, Porter, Aarons, Wuehler & Neufeld. (2013). Expanding the frontiers of population nutrition research: New questions, new methods, and new approaches. Advances in Nutrition. 4(1), 92-114. 

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