Food Justice and Peacebuilding are Fundamentally Interrelated. Member Spotlight: Jeanne Firth
Throughout her professional and academic career, Jeanne Firth has always endeavored to connect the two biggest threads of her family history – peacebuilding and food justice. Jeanne grew up in a faith-based household in Kansas City, where her parents’ work was a key part of her childhood. Her father was a pastor, and her parents were deeply involved in multi-faith, multi-racial coalition building efforts along with peace and justice work. However, her roots in Kansas go back even further. Jeanne comes from a Swedish immigrant family that has long lived as farmers on the Kansas prairie. From her personal history, Jeanne recognizes that food justice and peacebuilding are fundamentally interrelated. Her profound work on the subject reflects the deep roots of her parents’ peacebuilding, her ancestors’ farming tradition, and Jeanne’s own legacy as she works to bridge social divisions, further empathy and justice, and make the world a better place.
Tying Food Justice & Peacebuilding Together
For her undergraduate studies Jeanne attended Cornell College, where she received a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies. She then went on to get her Master’s degree in Gender, Development, and Globalization at the London School of Economics and Political Science. More recently, she finished her PhD at the London School of Economics in Human Geography and the Environment. Throughout both of her graduate degrees, food and food justice have been the roots of her academic inquiry and passion. From her PhD research Jeanne published a book titled “Feeding New Orleans: Celebrity Chefs and Reimagining Food Justice”, which focuses on rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In the book, Jeanne delves into the gift of giving and community building, and studies those who try to do good through generosity. She examines land rights, elite philanthropy, gender equality, and the legendary food culture of New Orleans to understand the complex relationships around food justice in the city.
Jeanne had moved to New Orleans in 2010, and along with several others, she co-founded Grow Dat Youth Farm. Grow Dat is a local non-profit, which aims to bring together youth from all walks of life and foster connections, community, and leadership. After this, Jeanne then decided to go do her PhD in London. She returned to the US several years later and started a job at VISIONS, Inc.
Jeanne first came across VISIONS, Inc. when she was working at Grow Dat Youth Farm. Grow Dat Farms became a client of VISIONS, Inc., who came to work on social cohesion and collaborative community building training. To Jeanne, the VISIONS, Inc. process was so amazing for the farm and staff team that she and one of her close co-workers were inspired to join the organization, and now both work full time at VISIONS, Inc.
“My work is about holding all of the things that have divided people and building bridges through those divisions.”
At VISIONS, Inc., an MBBI partner organization, Jeanne’s work is centered on healing fractures in communities. She does reconciliation work on race, class, gender, sexuality, and whatever other areas arise. Based on the idea that conflict can deepen relationships instead of severing them if managed in the right way, Jeanne works to build the skills that people need to relate with one another while accepting differences and overcoming divisions.
Facilitation and Personal Growth at Vision
“I constantly think of how lucky I am to do the work that I do. I feel like I have the best job in the world. It’s corny but it’s true.”
At VISIONS, Inc., Jeanne’s favorite part of being a facilitator is that she is constantly co-facilitating on a diverse team. Based on the VISIONS, Inc. model, she’s always paired with someone who is very different from her, whether it’s across race, gender, sexuality, etc. Jeanne notes that her work is a constant process of personal and team growth.
“We’re talking about multi-cultural communication, and we’re also practicing it – creating and sharing that space – at all times. It’s these relationships tha happen interpersonally but also at the institutional level that make such strong healthy organizations and networks.”
Jabari Carmichael Brown, Jeanne’s main co-facilitator at VISIONS, Inc. often says, “you never know when someone’s learning or growth is going to happen.” Jeanne explains that an exciting aspect of the trainings is to be able to guide people on their journeys, even while she too is growing all the time. For Jeanne, her work embodies the joy of success being shared.
“It’s such a gift when I’m facilitating a space and somebody has a lightbulb go off, or an ‘aha’ moment. It’s equally amazing when years later someone comes back to me and says ‘this thing you said profoundly impacted how I show up. I show up more compassionately in the world now because of that moment.’”
Jeanne’s Advice for New Peacebuilders
According to Jeanne, one of the key aspects of working in the field is to really invest in the things that will sustain you for the long-term. At VISIONS, Inc., they discuss the idea of being “in it for the long-haul”. They consider how you can use trauma-informed strategies to keep yourself going without burning out. Importantly, you have to learn how to engage in self-care.
“If I could talk to my younger self, I would really encourage myself to not try to skip that step. I would want to recognize the importance and the deepness of continual self-growth, self-understanding, self-care, and self-respect. That is what has helped me flourish.”
Jeanne reminds new peacebuilders that you must always remember to find the pleasure and joy in doing hard justice work. When doing hard work around conflict, or systemic racism or transphobia, for example, Jeanne explains that it’s vital to stay in touch with that joy and fulfillment. For her, much of this comes from the pleasure of co-facilitating with such a good team, and building relationships with those around her.
As a white person, Jeanne also recognizes the value of developing inner-strength and humility as she works in such complex and diverse circumstances. Over time, Jeanne notes that she’s had to build the strength to own her mistakes. Today, she provides an example of the courage it takes to face conflict instead of running away from it. She constantly looks for ways to repair harm when she’s caused it, and keeps learning and growing. As an academic, taking her work from the cognitive level to putting it into action in her own behaviors was at times challenging, but Jeanne encourages all those starting out to prioritize humility, learning, and self-understanding.
“It’s so important to remain rooted in that commitment to growth and humbleness. And your commitment to joy.”
Challenges in the Field
Jeanne practices her work in the United States, where political polarization is only one of the most recent chasms that have opened between social groups. One of the things she’s found most challenging is to encourage open and supportive discussions without having all of her own assumptions in mind. Despite how divided people have become, Jeanne wants to be able to build bridges, but she recognizes that it takes a real openness both from herself and from other people to be in relationship with one another, and to seek to understand each other in such a complex circumstance.
In order to break down assumptions that everyone holds, Jeanne searches for the shared essences of love and building community. To Jeanne, some of this is pushing away from the current cultural narratives, and rooting herself and others in the type of world that we want to create.
Jeanne has also become sensitive to the role of shame, which may enter into conversations about race, especially for white people, and cause them to react in all different kinds of ways.
“We say take shame out of the equation. No blame, shame, judgment, or attack of yourself or others. [In our work] we’re moving from shame to responsibility, from shame to learning. It’s just as much of a collective process as an individual one.”
When Jeanne feels that she’s at her best facilitating, she’s practicing “both/and” thinking instead of “either/or”. As she starts to get a sense of her own bias, her first move is to step back and see that two perspectives or narratives don’t actually have to be in competition with each other. She moves into holding people’s feelings about a situation, instead of fighting about facts. Feelings are often what is motivating someone to say or do something, but people are often not conscious of how emotions are driving them. When basing the situation on emotions, Jeanne feels like behaviors can be understood, addressed, and altered.
Jeanne lastly notes that at VISIONS, Inc., they have a concept called “self-focus”. This is the idea that facilitators need to be able to assess and understand their own reactions, emotions, and opinions about a situation in order to handle it most effectively. As a social scientist, Jeanne doesn’t believe that it’s ever possible for anyone to truly be unbiased, but she explains that skills can be built to notice and address bias. For facilitators (and participants), feelings are recognized and treated as important sources of information, conveying messages about what the person believes and what they might need to learn and grow. Overall, peacebuilding/justice efforts become much more productive this way than simply fighting about who’s right or wrong.
“I never let my values go out the door. I’m always going to show up with my values.If I’m really trying to get people to connect with one another, I’m trying to get them to talk about their feelings. It’s the idea that with enough information, mostly all behavior makes sense.”
Partnerships and the Future of Peacebuilding
Looking forward, Jeanne is very excited to deepen the relationships between VISIONS, Inc., her current work, and that of MBBI. She is looking forward to seeing the bigger picture of mediation/peacebuilding organizations and partnerships, and experiencing the impact that they can have together.
“It’s such a reminder that there is a much larger ecosystem of groups doing this work. Seeing the links between policy, advocacy, and partnerships at a network scale is exciting.”
Doing direct facilitative work, Jeanne gets the opportunity to see conflicts addressed and healed and be a part of change and growth at the inter-personal and personal level. However, she notes that it is a bit disappointing to see how often these skills of mediation and conflict resolution are needed on the larger scale, but not used. Jeanne cites the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer as she notes that humans are a relatively young species, and still learning how to live with one another.
“We didn’t already fail… There’s still the opportunity to learn, we all still have the chance to co-create a world that is better.”
Jeanne’s new book, Feeding New Orleans, ties into this idea. Though she uses food as a lens, her bigger picture focus is on how we can build more equitable, just, and sustainable futures, when so much of our past has been anything but this. Reflecting the way that Jeanne now understands the world, her book is shaped by VISIONS, Inc.’ approach. As someone who has always been curious about inequality and understanding how to make change, Jeanne is excited not only to see what new learning her book leads her to, but also to connect to the broader peacebuilding networks along the way.
As a facilitator, and as a person, Jeanne brings lightness, energy, depth, and optimism to the work that she does. Through her book and her years of facilitative work, Jeanne not only helps to imagine this sort of brighter future, but helps to construct it bit by bit.
Article by Elise Webster, MBBI Writer