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5. Who Participates in the Green Economy?
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94 Chapter five Who Participates in the Green Economy? We like what happens socially at the farmer’s market, which is quickly emerging as the new public square in this country. If you compare what happens in the aisles at the grocery store with the farmer’s market, think about what a world of difference that is. People politic. They have petitions. They schmooze. It’s just an incredibly vibrant space. —michael pollan, “Beyond the Bar Code: The Local Food Revolution” No matter how casually it is used, then, the notion of community may be doing sociological and ideological work—work that ranges from simply reinforcing the status quo to challenging systems of oppression. . . . Collectivity and exclusion are two sides of the same coin. . . . Community is the coinage. —gerald w. creed, The Seductions of Community: Emancipations, Oppressions, Quandaries To spend an afternoon at the West Oakland Farmers Market is to be surrounded by hugs, handshakes, and other expressions of familiarity. Many vendors and customers know each other by name and exchange familiar greetings. David Roach, the market founder, stresses the importance of this face- to- face interaction as a key purpose of the farmers market: “People come there to talk. They might buy just a little food, but they know each other. They sit there, listen to the music, and they’ll talk for a long time. [They’ll see] somebody else who they haven’t seen in a long time.” Examples of this kind of community building were common when I attended the market. One afternoon, an elderly black man named Kofi approached Jason, the market manager, telling him he had recently met his mother. “And now I’ve seen David at the market with his Who Participates in the Green Economy? • 95 father and realized I know him too,” Kofi continued excitedly. He then became a regular customer, spending many Saturday afternoons talking with the farmers and other vendors. Similarly, one afternoon in North Berkeley, a white high- school student walked through the market with headphones on. “Hi, neighbor,” said a tall white man, tapping him on the shoulder. The boy took off his headphones and smiled at the man, and then waved to the infant the man carried on his back. They continued to discuss the man’s family, the boy’s school, and the upcoming sats. Nikki, the Chez Panisse chef who visited an area farm to plan a supper club, described the North Berkeley Farmers Market as “the most tangible community I have access to.” Of the one hundred customers surveyed at each farmers market, 38 percent in West Oakland and 28 percent in North Berkeley reported seeing friends and neighbors every or almost every time they visited. A Vibrant Public Place These are the kinds of practices that farmers market proponents, including popular writers like Michael Pollan, draw on to envision farmers markets as vibrant public spaces (2006; see also McKibben 2007). Market proponents believe that by buying and selling to one another, neighbors will become acquainted and develop relationships. This narrative evokes what Raymond Williams calls the “warmly persuasive” connotations of the term community (1975, 76). The desire to create social ties through face- to- face interaction at farmers markets is rooted in, and responds to, a nostalgic notion of “community lost” embedded in influential strands of U.S. social thought.1 According to this perspective, urbanized, industrial society is inherently alienating, and the good life can be found only in small, rural towns (Park 1925; Wirth 1938; Lofland 1998). This “community lost” narrative is commonly invoked by conservative politicians lamenting the loss of traditional values, as Sarah Palin has done through references to the “real America.” Conversely, it colors the thinking of the back- to- the- land movement and agrarian authors. Wendell Berry, for example, the farmer and poet to whom Michael Pollan dedicates The Omnivore’s Dilemma, writes that “A proper community . . . answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members—among them the need to need one another” (2006, 63). It is this degree of interaction and interdependence with known people that many observers believe is missing from urban lifestyles. Romantic notions of community, coupled with nostalgic assertions that it has somehow been lost, prompt farmers market participants to interact in ways that simultaneously construct and claim this unquestioned good. [44.222.249.19] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:35 GMT) 96 • chapter five For proponents of farmers markets, creating community is not only socially...