Final Moment of Significance
What?
As a part of this project, we trialed the Vancouver Food Asset Map at a youth clinic in East Vancouver. We went to the clinic on March 6th and demonstrated the utility and application of the map to community members visiting the clinic. We collected public feedback through evaluation forms provided by our community partner, VCH, while following research guidelines and ethics outlined by the TCPS2 tutorial, such as maintaining confidentiality and collecting informed consent (Government of Canada, 2014). The evaluation forms consisted of general questions about the impressions and utility of the map that participants filled out individually. This opportunity was a great learning experience that helped us understand the real challenges and uncertainties faced when working with communities and vulnerable populations.
On arrival, we had hoped to connect with the community and generate enthusiasm about the map and all of its uses, however, after trialling, we were left disappointed because we felt we had not made a positive contribution to the community. As a group, we felt that we were not the right people to be speaking with this demographic, and that the location chosen didn’t reflect the population VFAM seeks to target. From this experience, we were able to see our project through a more critical lens, and completely change our perspective on our actions within the community.
So What?
The script provided was intended to seem professional, but required us to start off our conversations stating that we were UBC students. We felt like this prevented us from connecting with the youth in the clinic because it presented a perceived status separation that created a distance between us and our participants. We felt like participants were less comfortable engaging with us, especially when discussing sensitive issues like food insecurity and access to free or low cost foods. Since our group is not personally familiar with the struggles of affording foods, we felt like we were imposing our own ideas and solutions to the community without proper understanding of what they needed. This directly contradicts the idea of asset based community development and the promotion of food justice that we had originally been striving for. Asset based community development requires working with communities and listening to their needs and working with their existing systems and infrastructure to help overcome challenges (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003), whereas our project was a tool already created, and we were simply asking for public opinion on the prescribed solution. We were imposing our ideas of the solution for their possible food insecurity without knowledge of whether or not food asset maps would truly benefit their communities.
Given these feelings, our perception of where this project stands in the goal for food justice in Vancouver. By definition, community participation and roles within the food system are required to achieve food justice (Allen, 2008). Therefore, our project does not seem to be as in line with this definition as we had proposed. This moment of significance has changed our perspective on the project and helped us learn how we would proceed differently in the future if working on something similar.
Now What?
Looking forward, it is imperative to consider the contributions of the community when trying to implement solutions that will affect it. As Ernesto Sirolli says in his Ted Talk, listening to the needs of the community and implementing changes that they suggest is paramount to aiding with food security and creating real changes in vulnerable populations. If we were to do this again, we would definitely change the script to exclude the fact that we were UBC students from the introduction as to avoid creating any immediate barriers in conversation, especially considering the youth demographic we were speaking with. As young people, we feel it is difficult enough to discuss sensitive topics with unfamiliar peers, let alone peers possibly from a different socio-economic background.
In addition, next time we would choose a location more likely to attract people who are more comfortable and expecting to food insecurity and possible rather than springing it on an unsuspecting population of clinic-goers. We are providing a constructed solution to people who we do not even know if they need it, which is a striking pattern outlined by Bradley & Herrera (2016) in their paper Decolonizing Food Justice: Naming, Resisting, and Researching Colonizing Forces in the Movement. Overall, this project was eye-opening to how far we still need to go when working with vulnerable populations and addressing their issues in ways that will truly be effective.
References:
Allen, P. (2008). Mining for justice in the food system: Perceptions, practices, and possibilities.
Agriculture and Human Values, 25, 157-161. doi:10.1007/s10460-008-9120-6
Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based community development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474-486.
Sirolli, Ernesto (2012). Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! TED Talks. Retrieved from:
Bradley, K., & Herrera, H. (2016). Decolonizing Food Justice: Naming, Resisting, and Researching Colonizing Forces in the Movement. Antipode, 48(1), 97–114.
Government of Canada (2014). TCPS 2. The latest edition of Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. Retrieved from:
http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/Default/
