Culture-centered coalitions as social change agents: An organizational ethnography of 'Voices of hunger'

Christina L Jones, Purdue University

Abstract

With an understanding of the meanings of food insecurity as a contextual foundation, this organizational ethnography advances the culture-centered approach by theorizing a framework for understanding the communicative processes through which participation is constituted within coalitions seeking structural transformations, especially as participation relates to the opportunities for listening to the voices of marginalized community members. Analyzing the mechanisms by which participation and collaboration occur in culture-centered coalitions through the lens of the "Voices of Hunger" food coalition, this study has found that when working as a collective, the food insecure can became a key stakeholder in decision-making processes amidst dynamic economic and social environments. Particularly, in contributing to a clear understanding of the problem, meaningful solutions, as well as the development of infrastructures, capacities, and resources necessary for meeting the needs of the collective, the food insecure came to elaborate an understanding of participation as the opening of a communicative space where they could share their lived experiences, where structural constraints could become meaningful through the contexts of the local culture, and where agency could be enacted in their acts of shared resistance and criticism.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Dutta, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Communication|Sociology

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