"Often, when we talk about food justice we focus on lack: food deserts or problems of access, unhealthy foods or government programs that dont provide enough. But we have as much to learn from stories of communal support as we do from stories of systemic lack. In Gather, anthropologist and writer Ashanté Reese offers a new vision of food justice, one that celebrates Black communities and argues for the value of togetherness in our increasingly isolated world. By exploring the ways Black people gather to nourish each other, both physically and spiritually, Gather argues that community wellbeing deserves as much consideration as individual health. In chapters centered on four spaces of gathering-gardens, family reunions, repasts, and protests-Reese offers rich, on-the-ground studies of the places and people who make up the food justice movement. From church community gardens and student protests at UT Austin to Reeses own family reunions, these moving vignettes affirm the value of reciprocity, mutual aid, and good food as vital ingredients for social change. Taken together, these chapters invite us to learn from the tactics Black communities have long used to maintain self-sufficiency and to rethink our relationship to community. There are no simple solutions to the problems of acute need; but by recognizing that food justice is already all around us, we can start working together to create the world we want to live in.

As deepening economic inequality and climate crisis make questions about how and where we get our food more urgent and as social isolation becomes more pervasive, this book shows us why the work of gathering is absolutely necessary"-- Provided by publisher.