THIS IS A PHOTO ESSAY
Reference for this assignment: You can base it on Congolese culture/food The purpose of this assignment is to critically reflect on your food environment based on personal experiences and to produce a short paper based on a topic of interest and academic materials. In Part 1, this will be achieved through a modified photo essay. In Part 2, this will be achieved through an academic paper. Part 1: The Individual (600 to 700 words, +/- 50 words) A photo essay is a string of related pictures that, used together, tell a cohesive story. Here are examples of a photo essay to inspire you during this process (you don’t need to follow their format) – notice the similarities and differences between these examples:
The focus of this photo essay is on your food environment. As Rideout, Mah, and Minaker (2015) note, food environments “… are the physical, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that impact the accessibility, availability, and adequacy of food within a community or region” (p. 1) Part 1 is considered the self-reflective component of your assignment. Share photos that identify key aspects of your food environment. They can be photos that you took yourself or they can be correctly cited pictures from the internet. These photos must represent components of your food environment. They can be based on your neighborhood, local grocery stores, etc. You can also differentiate between two food environments (i.e. home food environment and University food environment). 1. Introduction – must include a short introduction to your photo essay: •
Define “food environment” (from an academic source OR choose one from our Week 5 lecture, such as Rideout et al. or Turner et al.) • Introduce your photo essay – is it from your food, work, school environment? Etc.
2. Describe each photo: • Choose 4 or 5 relevant photos (your own or properly cited from the internet) – a photo collage only counts as 1 photo • EACH photo must have a short caption describing the photo (between 15-25 words) • Under EACH photo + caption, include one or two paragraphs linking the photo to the food environment definition in your Introduction •
These photos should tell a story about your food environment • Feel free to answer the guiding question(s) below Guiding Questions (you don’t need to answer all (or any!), these are to help guide your photo essay and reflection): • What makes up my food environment? Where do I obtain food in my neighbourhood? •
• What type of stores, restaurants, food outlets are in my food environment(s)? •
Is there a reason why certain foods are chosen more often than others? These photos must tell a story about your environment. Think of the physical, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that may be represented (as per food environment definition).
Part 2: The “Sociological Imagination” (1100 to 1200 words, +/- 50 words, approx. 5 pages) This is the scholarly component of the assignment where you can write about almost any food topic of interest. Your topic does not have to relate to your personal food environment; however, it must examine the course content and sociological concepts/themes.
Consider these steps to help get you started: 1. Which weekly lecture resonates with you. What are the course concepts or themes presented during that week?
2. Is there a current topic in the media that resonates with you?
3. How does this current topic relate back to the weekly lecture + course concepts and themes?
4. Visit University’s library website, type in key words for your topic, and let the literature help guide your thesis statement. What does the literature say?
5. Be clear in your thesis/research statement – what will you write about? Your essay can be argumentative/persuasive, descriptive/informative, or analytical. More tips on choosing a topic: • Choose a topic that draws from the sociological concepts/themes discussed in this course (it could be almost any topic and not necessarily linked to
Part 1 • Your topic can be any of the lecture topics (ex: culture and identity, environmental considerations, food policy, global food system, food waste, food marketing, Indigenous food systems, etc.) – this is very important as it will help narrow down and focus your paper • Choose 1 – 2 sociological (or at least social science!) concepts that are related to each other to understand how your personal experience connects with the broader food system. Concepts are abstract terms that academics use to help describe, explain, and generally make sense of the world and the things that happen in it. o Some examples of concepts include sustainability, justice, inequality, gender, race, culture, identity, discourse, food security, food sovereignty, etc.
• There can be larger concepts such as capitalism which have several related concepts such as neoliberalism, power, colonialism, discourse, commodity, etc. – again, the specific weekly lecture(s) you choose is important as this will include these concepts • Example of paper topics includes high food costs + food insecurity; trade policies + industrial food system; cultural identity + role of food environments; food insecurity + role of food environments (i.e. food deserts); power and privilege + alternative food system; healthy food discourse + healthism; spatial colonization + industrial food system; food insecurity + race; fat studies + healthy eating discourse, etc.