Dr. Roberts Publishes Co-Authored Book Chapter

Congratulations to Dr. Roberts, who recently had her co-authored chapter published in “Nurturing Food Justice: Expansive and Intersectional Visions”!

The chapter, titled “Street Food Justice”, focuses on discussing the many ways that food justice movements and the problems of injustice in the food system are evident in the world. The case discussed in this chapter is about street food vendors and trying to bring both public health discourse and academics into conversation with food scholars. A large portion of the existing literature about street food comes from public health, and questions the safety of eating food that’s been prepared on the street. Drs. Roberts and Brinkley demonstrate how this type of literature is led by opponents of street food, many of whom are often anti-immigrant or are representing brick and mortar restaurants that don’t want the competition brought by vendors.

In particular, the chapter highlights the tens of thousands of street food vendors in Los Angeles, showing how these powerful groups organized their own movement to try and push back on policies attempting to to limit vendors’ activities and criminalize them. Through this and other elements of the chapter, the authors make the case that street food is part of the food justice movement, and that it both needs and deserves more academic support within the food justice community.