May 11, 2015
UW author reads from ‘The Unending Hunger’ at Kane Hall May 14
Mention Santa Barbara, California, and many people might envision beaches, celebrities and ritzy homes in the so-called “American Riviera.”
But Megan Carney saw a much different side of the area while attending graduate school at the University of California’s campus there. Through her work on food justice advocacy initiatives, Carney learned that the Santa Barbara region had one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation and some of the highest levels of food insecurity in California.
“It’s a tale of two cities, a very wealthy upper-class and a very impoverished working class living side by side,” said Carney, now a lecturer in the University of Washington’s anthropology department and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program.
Carney’s dissertation research grew into her recently published book, “The Unending Hunger: Tracing Women and Food Insecurity Across Borders,” which she will be reading from at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 14 in Room 120 in Kane Hall on the UW campus.
The book looks at how food insecurity shapes the experiences of women migrating from Mexico and Central America to Santa Barbara County. Through the personal stories of women she met while conducting her fieldwork, Carney examines the role food insecurity plays in the migratory decisions of women who leave their home countries in an effort to better provide for their families, only to encounter similar poverty-related challenges in the United States.
Published in January by the University of California Press, the book has been called “a compelling indictment of the human failings of our national food system” and a “beautiful and incisive ethnography.”
