The Rematriation of Design: Nurturing the Emergence of Generative Production Networks using Design for Generative Justice

Abstract

The food system in the US has supported growing dominance of industrial agriculture, corporate distribution chains, and other means by which power is exerted at the expense of environmental sustainability, citizen health and wealth inequality. The impacts have been most damaging to under-served and racialized communities. Online purchasing creates new opportunities--particularly in the context of the covid epidemic--but barriers may arise that are also along race and class divisions. This thesis examines an initial data set for two Black led collaborative Food System projects, two urban farms and a mobile farmers market initiative. All are primarily staffed by African American leadership, and serve a diverse set of community members with marginalized consumers being of the majority. I contrast the experiences in the shift to online sales for these groups with other online food networks for primarily white and middle class producer/consumer relations. While issues such as EBT and SNAP benefit payments constitute formal economic barriers, other challenges are better illuminated through the lens of the extraction of value: the loss of community connections and increased dependency on modes of production that do not return value to the community. I define 'generative production networks'' as those which maximize unalienated value return rather than value extraction. I utilize this framework to examine alternative online systems to overcome these barriers.