“A piercing ethnographic study of the power dynamics and misunderstandings that plague 'food justice' nonprofits."—Publishers Weekly
Breaks open the privilege and promise of food justice to envision a radical liberatory future.
Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best intentions, they often perpetuate food access inequalities and racial stereotypes. Hanna Garth shows how the movement has been affected by misconceptions and assumptions about residents, as well as by unclear definitions of justice and what it means to be healthy. Focusing on broad structures and microlevel processes, Garth reveals how power dynamics shape social justice movements in particular ways.
Drawing on twelve years of ethnographic research, Garth examines what motivates people from more affluent, majority-white areas of the city to intervene in South Central Los Angeles. She argues that the concepts of "food justice" and "healthy food" operate as racially coded language, reinforcing the idea that health problems in low-income Black and Brown communities can be solved through individual behavior rather than structural change. Food Justice Undone explores the stakes of social justice and the possibility of multiracial coalitions working toward a better future.
Hanna Garth is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, author of Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal, and coeditor of Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice.
"In Food Justice Undone, Garth listens at the fault lines of broken systems and distills from their ruptures a blueprint for movements rooted in care, precision, and collective power. A landmark achievement."—Laurence Ralph, author of Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him
"An unflinching yet nuanced account of why efforts to 'bring healthy food' to communities like South Central Los Angeles often undo the potential for food justice. Garth demonstrates how urban food programs can operate as 'racialization projects'—and suggests how justice might yet be realized."—Heather Paxson, Professor of Anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Garth meticulously details the contradictions and possibilities in the food justice movement. Food Justice Undone is a cautionary tale about what happens when food justice's radical origins are co-opted or overshadowed by pragmatism."—Ashanté M. Reese, author of Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C.
"Through careful and compassionate ethnography, Garth questions the 'good intentions' of food justice movements and shows how local communities are already successfully working toward truly liberatory change and community well-being."—Melissa L. Caldwell, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
"A welcome intervention. Hanna Garth powerfully demonstrates the ways in which well-meaning outsiders override the lived experience and leadership of communities targeted by food justice interventions, undermining the radical potential of the movement."—Maggie Dickinson, author of Feeding the Crisis: Care and Abandonment in America's Food Safety Net
"This is a brilliant, impassioned, ethnographically grounded critique of the food justice movement. In lucid and accessible prose, Garth demonstrates how the implicit whiteness of food justice organizations produces undesired outcomes and what is needed to forge true multiracial food movements that center the knowledge and sovereignty of Black and Brown communities."—Akhil Gupta, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
304 pp.6 x 9Illus: 17 b/w illustrations; 4 maps
9780520396685$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Feb 2026