Reimagining Community Speaker Series: Kami Pothukuchi
March 17, 2016 | 7 p.m. | 2452 Knauss hall, WMU
“What is the Community that Feeds You?: Re-imagining Food, Re-imagining Community in Detroit”
Detroit is now considered to be the hotbed for urban agriculture and local food system development. Drawing from her study of these activities in Detroit, and on conversations with community leaders over the last decade, Dr. Pothukuchi will discuss how ideas of community have grown and evolved as activities to grow urban agriculture and local food systems have developed. Although conversations about community are never done or resolved, she will highlight what it means in a particular place and time to re-imagine community by rethinking our food.
Kami Pothukuchi is associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University. She is the founding director of SEED Wayne, a campus-community collaborative dedicated to building sustainable food systems at WSU and in Detroit neighborhoods. Her action research examines how interventions in community food systems may advance goals in public health, economic development, social justice, and ecological sustainability.