Twelfth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Gentrification leads to transformations to the food landscape. In gentrifying neighborhoods, established eateries can be replaced by farmers markets, cosmopolitan restaurants, microbreweries and coffee shops that begin to change the existing neighborhood culture and attract outsiders. Existing food options often serve ethnic foods that cater to a neighborhood’s ethnic, and often minority, population. Changes in a neighborhood’s ethnic foods often signal changes in neighborhood demographics. In essence, as neighborhood food outlets transform, they signify whose food matters and thus serve to illustrate neighborhood change and the potential tension such change might bring. Through ethnographic and geospatial information science (GIS) methods, this research attempts to determine how transformations to the food landscape signals not only neighborhood change but also how that change affects access to food and the perception residents have of their neighborhood. Definitions of food security rarely consider diverse populations and the importance of access to culturally relevant foods. We seek to investigate how access to culturally specific food impacts food security as neighborhood demographics shift.