Tenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Where might the energies of a diverse working-class town and an historically white-dominated small college meet? In a garden? As Albion College becomes an increasingly multiracial institution, its leadership has supported an integration between the campus and the community. The collaboration between the Albion College Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGS) class, “Gender and the Global Garden,” and the Albion Community Gardens supports not only the need for young energy in the community gardens, but a research project documenting the unique history of food and gardening in Albion, Michigan. This project records the practices that trace the settlement of European heritage farmers on traditional Potowantomi land through the successive waves of immigration, both internal and external. It shows how Albion gardeners maintained their traditional crops and adapted to the local climate and neighbors.