Liberation Through Land: Organic Gardening and Racial Justice

Through field trips, practical work and readings, this course provides students with the tools to begin cultivating a relationship to land that focuses on direct engagement with sustainable gardening, from seed to harvest. The course will take place on the O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, where students will be given the opportunity to learn how to sow seeds, prepare garden beds, amend soils, build compost, and take care of plants. The history of forced farm labor in the U.S., from slavery to low-wage migrant labor, means that many people of color encounter agricultural spaces as sites of trauma and oppression. In this course we will explore the potential for revisiting a narrative of peaceful relation to land and crop that existed long before the trauma occurred, acknowledging the beautiful history of POC coexistence with land. Since this is a practical course, there will be a strong emphasis on participation. Application available at https://goo.gl/forms/cbYX3gSGdrHgHBJH3; deadline to apply is September 18, 2018, at midnight. The course is co-sponsored by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA) and the Earth Systems Program.