Abstract
Food possesses inherent cultural attributes and serves as a natural medium of connection. This paper introduces a design project for social innovation using food resources: "From Tree to Table" (FTTT). The project is the product of a social innovation course at an art school and lasted for three months. The focus of the project is on the relationship between soft food sovereignty and community transformative change. The Peach Lake Community (PLC) is rich in ecological resources, and a government-level change resulted in differentiation within the community between indigenous residents and recent migrants. FTTT explores the possibility of using the seasonal food, sour jujubes, from the PLC for social innovation. The study found that food, as a medium, can facilitate community transformative change in the non-violent assimilation guided by soft food sovereignty. We propose an implementation model for food co-creation workshops in community educational spaces (5W1H+OE).
Keywords
design for social innovation; participatory design; ecological resources; educational spaces
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1282
Citation
Wen, Y., Ji, P., Jiang, Y., Chen, Q., and Meng, H. (2024) Community empowerment and identity assimilation: Social innovation design practice through food resources, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1282
Creative Commons License
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Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Community empowerment and identity assimilation: Social innovation design practice through food resources
Food possesses inherent cultural attributes and serves as a natural medium of connection. This paper introduces a design project for social innovation using food resources: "From Tree to Table" (FTTT). The project is the product of a social innovation course at an art school and lasted for three months. The focus of the project is on the relationship between soft food sovereignty and community transformative change. The Peach Lake Community (PLC) is rich in ecological resources, and a government-level change resulted in differentiation within the community between indigenous residents and recent migrants. FTTT explores the possibility of using the seasonal food, sour jujubes, from the PLC for social innovation. The study found that food, as a medium, can facilitate community transformative change in the non-violent assimilation guided by soft food sovereignty. We propose an implementation model for food co-creation workshops in community educational spaces (5W1H+OE).