Progressive Home Economics

My name is Mecca Jackson and I AM a self designed concentration. Yes, that's right Mr. Ponder, I AM my concentration, "Nourishing Traditions: Food and the Community" has been the best name for it so far, so I guess that's it. It was something I learned in Histories of Knowledges about being "situated" and having "situated knowledges." I am studying food culture, food history, community development and Sociology. I am looking at how these subjects relate to historic and existing communities and how these subjects relate to one another using the context of Southern Appalachia as a model. THe reason I say that I AM my concentration is because I cannot separate myself from it. I realized this recently when sometimes I couldn't wrap my brain around all that I wanted to study and I couldn't put it into the context that many people would ask me to, such as "well what sort of job will you be getting with THAT?" "with that?!" "that" is me and the communities around me. THat is four uncles and three aunts and almost forty cousins on one side and one grandmother feeding them all. THAT is not only the past, but the present and the future. I'de also like to call what I am doing "Progressive Home Economics." I believe that when and if the home and community are the places of production (food is a biggie), then our communities will become stronger and more sustainable. Knowledge can then be passed laterally among the community members and the ties of labor as well as the fruit of labor will be strong bonds that will hold a foundation for all kinds of progressive community development. I feel that this theory can be passed to any cultural context with little modification. THerefore, I wouldnt say that I am studying Appalachian Foodways, although I have and am, but that I have used the culture of Southern Appalachia to develop ideas about sustainable community development. This does not mean that Appalachian culture holds a sustainable model in itself, but by using the lenses of sustainable development and women's studies, I have understood how many aspects of the culture could be ephasized to build sustainable communities.

Courses:

IDS 2530 Selected Topics: Introduction to Sustainable Development, Chuck Smith

FCS 2202 Nutrition and Health, Lisa McAnulty

IDS 3252. Intermediate Agroecology, Cristof den Biggelaar

ANT 3150 Human Ecology of the Southern Appalachians, Dr. Harvard Ayers

IDS 3530 Women in Appalachia, Rebecca Baird

PLN 3531 Planning for Sustainable Communities, Dr. Jana Carp

PLN 3531 Rural Community Development, Dr. Jana Carp

IDS 3536 Foodways: Seeds of Change, Rebecca Cranston & Neva Specht

IDS 3700 Seminar II: Feminist Theories, Dr. Maggie McFadden

Books/Articles:
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon

Fat Land: How Americans became the Fattest people in the World by Greg Critser

Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (Indians of the Southeast) by Theda Perdue

Wendell Berry "The Art of the Commonplace" and "The gift of Good Land." and others.

Other Experiences:

I left ASU after completing my first two years of school and my core requirments to work for the Northwest Service Academy in Trout Lake, WA. It was a residential Americorps program meaning that four teams of 8 ppl lived together on the back couple of acres of the Forest Service Headquarters for Giford Pinchot Nat'l Forest. We all shared a community kitchen of mostly organic and local foods. I aquired the reputation of a damn good cook with all the southern charm a girl could muster. I realized how unique and meaningful a deep cultural connection to food can be. A small group of us also headed up the garden for the year.This is where i began to pay attention to the connections between a community and their food (survival). I also began to notice how working with people, like really working for the service and survival of everyone, really helped a community hold itself together and respect one another. I then traveled to Southern Mexico and was there for 3 months. I was surrounded by people of another culture doing what they did everyday: surviving and working together. Especially when I was in a more rural area did I notice this and feel a tinge of homesickness. It was then that I realized I wanted to return to the south to MY community and be a part of it.