A Food Geographer

Or maybe, a geographer of food. Sounds nice, eh?

My attempts to summarize my chosen area of study have enjoyed a wide range of success and failure over the past few years. There's the old standby, the definition from my department of "the study of the spatial organization of human activity and human interaction with the physical environment." I used to (and sometimes still do) rattle that one off with a matter-of-fact tone and a straight face (for some reason substituting 'distribution' for 'organization'), as if I am fulfilling the stuff of everyone's childhood dreams. But I have received enough blank stares, quizzical looks ("that's a real major?"), half-smiles of suspicion ("you're serious?"), and I-tentatively-think-I-get-it-but-don't-care-to-press-the-issue facial expressions to know that the old standby is not enough.

These days I usually proceed in a fashion similar to the following:
"I study human geography-it's the study of human activity and society, like, the distribution of our activities, in relation to the environment...it's somewhere between the social sciences and hard sciences, like, an interdisciplinary focus...yeah, it sounds broad, I know. You can study just about anything and call it human geography, like transportation systems, economic geography, urban planning, uh, and, lots of people go work for government agencies or as consultants...yeah, and I'm really interested in agriculture and how we get our food..."

Of course it is natural to get so many questions about such an obscure and inglorious field of study as mine--I would be wondering too if I wasn't the one studying it. Heck, I still have those what-the-bleep moments at times, and I don't feel at all like someone who is wrapping up 4 years of studying to be a human geographer. Looking through the lens of geography and environment and the above description of my major on the website, my classes and academic program have felt about as cohesive as wet sand drying in your hand in the sun. But that is the subject of another whole post, and probably a letter to BU too when this is all over. You can peek at my course list for the entire college career below.

However, I wasn't studying for 4 years to become a career or a specialist; I was studying to become JD.

That food/farming part at the end of the description of my studies, I added that within the last year and a half or so. (I found this great entry, in the online Encyclopedia of Food & Culture, on the geography of food; it neatly sums up the applicability of geographers to food studies.) That is something I am sure of, something that grounds me whenever I get waves of panic about not leaving school with 'marketable skills' or a job lined up for my favorite I-banking firm (did you know people, young people like students, have favorite I-banking companies? it boggles my mind, but it is true) or a clear sense of the direction my life will take in the next 5 or 10 years.

Whatever happens, I know that I want to devote part or all of my life to reconnecting people (including myself) with the landscapes that sustain us and with sources of healthy (in many senses) food. I daresay I might feel passionate about local food systems, sustainable agriculture, urban and peri-urban agriculture, and the many associated benefits these production systems can provide to people, communities, the environment, and our societies as a whole.

So yeah, it took a few years, but I feel I can say, finally, with confidence, in my last semester of undergraduate liberal arts studies, that I am a food geographer.


CAS CC101 Ancient World Hume 1
CAS CC105 Core Natural Science 1
CAS GE100 Intr Envron Science
CAS PS101 Gen Psychology

SPRG 08 CAS CC102 Core Humanit 2
CAS CC106 Core Nat Sci 2
CAS ID116 Africa Today
CAS LG212 4th Sem German

FALL 08 CAS CC201 Core Humanit 3
CAS EC101 Intro Microeconomics
CAS GE103 Economic Geography
CAS MA121 Calc I-Soc Sci

SPRG 09 CAS CC202 Core Humanit 4
CAS EC102 Intro Macroecon
CAS GE309 Envir Analysis
CAS MA213 Basic Stat&Prob

FALL 09 CAS GE250 Fate of Nations
CAS GE275 Intro Env Modelling
CAS GE356 Third World Development
CAS LA111 Hausa 1

SPRG 10 CAS HI384E N Afr History&Relig
CAS LY111E Modern Arabic 1
CAS LY112E Modern Arabic 2
CAS WS351E Women Islam&Pol

FALL 10 CAS GE302 Remote Sensing
CAS GE304 Sustainable Dev
CAS GE460 Resource Economics
CAS HI589 Hist Food Envir & Soc

SPRG 11 CAS GE492 Local Food Direct.study
CAS GE365 Intro to GIS
CAS GE394 Envir Hist Africa
CFA MU567 African drumming&dance
PDP DA179 Afro-Jazz

"You're just as guilty as them"

Who is anthony green talking to? In the original song, I am not sure, but he could be talking about The Giving Pledge.

40 billionaires giving at least half of their fortunes away...wow, that's a lot of money. hip, hip, hooray! I guess I should be appreciative of this pledge deal and the philanthropic efforts of Bill Buffet. I mean Warren Gates. Wait, uhh...nevermind.

I am just hesitant to get excited about it because I am not sure how all those billions will be put to use. Throwing money at a problem behind your 800-thread-count-egyptian-cotton-blindfold is, in addition to being an inefficient use of said cash, a good way to breed corruption and turn good things sour. The funneling of western aid money into Africa over the past 50 years, as explored by Dambisa Moyo, is a prime example of the destructive corrosive power of too much free money.

Hopefully the giving pledge is more than just a publicity stunt. I don't know, can we really even pretend to know or trust or understand these people? We will see eventually whether the intentions of Warren n' Bill are as good as they seem from the press releases and photo shoots. My reality is just so far removed from theirs that it makes me very skeptical. For an example of the relative proximity of Me versus Bill Buffet: Every cent of the ten dollars I spent on a delicious and much needed breakfast, for two, was begrudingly relinquished!

Ok not quite. So I paid a visit to Mike and Patty's (still up there on Yelp!) today on a whim, and I spent ten whole dollars cash. I had not been since last fall, almost a year ago, when I visited in September with a broken collarbone. In the end it was very much worth it. Good to see the old faces of Mike and Heather, still sweating and smiling and making amazing food in that tiny bacon-perfumed box, plus two new employees (mine and Patty's replacements you could say). Patty is taking a more backseat administrative role in the operation and thus works less in-store. One of the new girls (not very new, both have long outlasted me) only charged me for one 5 dollar sandich. My bill should have been 10.50; 5 plus 3.50 for the other, plus 2 for coffee. But I stuffed the whole 5 into the corn meal tip box without a second thought.

My north south classic was a hot creamy crunchy salty chewy mess of joy. Toasted english muffin with over medium egg, cheddar cheese, peameal bacon (cured, unsmoked, pork loin rolled in cornmeal, the "real" Canadian bacon), bacon, and garlic sauteed greens (collards n' spinach), mmm I want another. And the coffee is as good as it ever was, meaning it's still better than the coffee at Licks-I'm sorry guys, but check out M & P's.

This breakfast, mind you, was the perfect start to an otherwise beautiful day only slightly tainted by the effects of last night's Peabody party on my body. Just need to rehydrate, ok...And I was able to deliver an egg, cheese, n' tomato muffin, plus coffee, to Jill as she started her shift at Emack n' Bolio's on Newbury Street. I think it will help her get through the day. Me, I have the day off. Tomorrow too! I am thinking about poking around JP tomorrow, including stops at JP licks and BNB. Anyone have other recommendations?

Back to the billion-heirs for one moment. The most interesting part of the article I referred to above, for me, was this bit near the end:

"If the individuals on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans pledged half their net worth to charity, that would amount to $600 billion, according to Fortune magazine.
The United States has roughly 400 billionaires, about 40 percent of the world's total, according to Forbes."

Maybe we should call it the Billionaire List, because thats what it sounds exactly like. 400 people in this country hold sway over at least one billion dollars, and their total worth is approximately 1.2 trillion dollars, probably give or take a few billion. By comparison, the total GDP of the US in 2009 was 14.26 trillion according to the CIA World Factbook. That's a lot of money for 800 hands.

How about the fact that 40 percent of the world's billionaires are from the US of A? Does that strike you in any way? It makes sense, for we are clearly the best at amassing great amounts of wealth into as few hands as possible. And if we consume about 25 percent of the world's resources, we better have a long Forb-illion-heir list to show for it! These people have so much filthy stinking money they don't know what to do with it, and now they are trying to make up for the devious destructive means with which they amassed said wealth by giving it all away.

Well let me tell you this guys, the damage is done. In the end, you're just as guilty as them.