Research interests:
My research interests are quantitative methods and analysis; food systems; race, class, and gender; health disparities/social
determinants of health; and rural health. Currently, I study the data needs and pricing strategies of industry actors in California's
organic agriculture system. I also study the accessibility of community gardens across the United States and their potential
to alleviate food insecurity and food desert conditions among different demographics while improving overall health and well-being.
More broadly, I'm interested in how race, class, and gender shape local food environments and who has access to healthy food, with a particular
focus on improving food security, and environmental and human health. My research emphasizes the importance of local food environments for
individual food access, but also speaks to the need to dismantle broader systems of inequality within the global food system.
Publications:
- Butterfield, Katie L. 2022. “Modeling community garden participation: how locations and frames shape participant demographics”
Agriculture and Human Values. (doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10406-2)
(Accepted Version)
Abstract:
Ample research documents the health benefits of community gardens, but our understanding of the factors shaping gardener participation
is limited. Neighborhood demographics and garden frames have each been theorized to play a role in shaping who participates in community
gardens. Yet, our understanding of the interplay between these factors is underdeveloped and this body of work lacks consideration of the
racial and class makeup of gardeners on a large scale. With a nation-wide survey that includes measures of gardener demographics (N = 162),
the present study considers the extent to which community garden frames and locations simultaneously shape participant demographics. I
combine these factors into a conceptual model explaining community garden participation as an iterative process of framing, accessibility,
and representation, all situated within a garden’s surrounding community. Results show some base correlations between gardens focusing on
healthy food access or symbolic food labels and gardener demographics, but ordered logistic and negative binomial regressions show stronger
evidence of community demographics shaping gardener demographics. At the same time, t-tests comparing mean neighborhood and gardener
demographics shows a consistent under-representation of Latinx community members among gardeners. As theorized in the model presented,
community garden locations are important for shaping what demographics are represented among gardeners, but how community garden benefits
are framed can limit garden accessibility, and subsequently neighborhood representation, especially for Latinx residents. This model helps
illustrate the mechanisms through which garden organizers and advocates can develop more inclusive community gardens through fostering
representation from people of color and the working-class.
- Marin, Nefertari, Brittany Oakes, and Katie Butterfield. 2021. "Changing the World with Community Gardens: A study of community gardens and community garden nonprofits across the United States".
ArcGIS Online Story Map
Abstract:
This story map outlines the historical and current context of community gardening in the United States and explores the potential of community gardens to
address inequality using national-level survey and interview data of community gardeners, managers, and supporting nonprofits. Community gardens are widely
loved for the many benefits they bring. Community gardens have a long history of use by institutional actors to address hunger and as sites of resistance to
structural inequality. Over the past few decades, the number of community gardens has grown across the United States, along with other ‘alternative food
programs’. Funding for these efforts has expanded, alongside the mainstreaming of discourse around food deserts, food security, and food justice. Broader
institutional support has also expanded: a growing nonprofit sector facilitates the growth of community gardens; advocates drive policy changes to support
community gardens and urban food growing; academics, authors, and journalists write more about community gardens; and cities have supplied public land for garden
use.
How are community gardens contributing to their local communities, and how might this increase in community gardens contribute to wider systemic change?
To answer these questions, we explore findings from a survey of community gardeners across the United States and interviews with community gardeners and staff
at nonprofits supporting community gardens. These findings offer insight into the impact and role of community gardens in effecting change, as well as the growth
of nonprofits supporting community gardens today.
- Butterfield, Katie L. and A. Susana Ramírez. 2021. "Framing Food Access: Do Community Gardens Inadvertently Reproduce Inequality?"
Health Education and Behavior. (doi.org/10.1177/1090198120950617)
(Accepted Version)
Abstract:
Background. Alternative food programs have been proposed as solutions to food insecurity and diet-related health issues.
However, some of the most popular programs—farmers markets and community-supported agriculture—overwhelmingly serve White and upper-middle-class
individuals, exacerbating food security and health disparities. One explanation for the mismatch is the way in which alternative food programs
are framed: Language used to encourage participation may reflect priorities of upper-middle-class and White populations who create and run
these programs while lacking resonance with food-insecure populations. This literature, however, lacks consideration of how lower-cost,
more participatory programs—community gardens—are framed. We therefore explore the framing of community gardens through a quantitative
content analysis of the descriptions, missions, and goals provided by community garden managers across Minnesota (N = 411).
Results. Six frames were consistently present in the community garden statements: greater good, community orientation, healthy food access,
food donation, self-empowerment, and symbolic food labels. Greater good and community orientation were significantly more likely to be
used than any other frames.
Conclusions. Taken together, our findings suggest that community gardens may be welcoming toward a diversity of participants but still have
room to improve the inclusivity of their frames. The common use of a community orientation suggests the unique ability of community gardens
among alternative food programs to benefit Black, Latino, and working-class populations. However, the most common frame observed was
“greater good,” suggesting one mechanism through which community gardens, like other types of alternative food programs, may be reproducing
inequality through alienation of food-insecure populations.
- Butterfield, Katie L. 2020. “Neighborhood Composition and Community Garden Locations: The Effect of Ethnicity, Income, and Education”
Sociological Perspectives. (doi.org/10.1177/0731121420908902)
(Accepted Version)
Abstract:
Community gardens provide food, health, and sustainability benefits to surrounding communities.
Research demonstrates that low-income or ethnic-minority communities develop gardens to resist divestment and provide access to healthy food,
whereas white or highly-educated communities develop gardens to address local sustainability concerns.
Missing from this discussion is a comprehensive picture of the relationship between neighborhood composition and community garden locations.
Using GrowNYC and GreenThumb’s 2014 survey of New York City community gardens, this study employs negative binomial and spatial
regression methods to examine this relationship. Findings reveal increased numbers of gardens in communities with higher aggregate
concentrations of: 1. black and/or Latino residents, 2. lower-income residents, and 3. well-educated residents, regardless of ethnicity or income.
In keeping with qualitative research on motivations for garden development, this study provides crucial quantitative
metrics suggesting the diversity of neighborhoods with community gardens and supports their inclusion in urban public policy and city planning.
Projects:
- Butterfield, Katie L., Brittany Oakes, and Zulema Valdez Community Gardening in the United States (monograph)
Presentations:
- 2021 - “Community Gardening in the United States” with Brittany Oakes and Zulema Valdez, Grow Grant Conference
- 2021 - “Community Garden Accessibility: Impacts of Frames and Locations” 2021 Joint Annual Conference of the
Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society (AFHVS), Canadian
Association for Food Studies (CAFS), and The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN)
- 2021 - “Community Gardening in the United States” with Brittany Oakes and Zulema Valdez, 2021 Joint Annual Conference
of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society (AFHVS),
Canadian Association for Food Studies (CAFS), and The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN)
- 2019 - “Community Gardens, Investments, and Health Outcomes” 2019 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting,
Round Table 26. Places, Housing, and Health
- 2019 - “Health Benefits of Urban Vs. Rural Community Gardens” 2019 Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociology Society
- 2019 - “Community Gardens, Structural Inequalities, and Health: Urban Vs. Rural Community Gardens” Joint Annual Conference
of the Association for the Study of Food & Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS)
- 2018 - “Community Gardens, Inequality, and Health” UC Merced Blum Center Summer Institute
- 2017 - “Race, Class, and Community Garden Locations” Lyceum Lunchtime Speaker Series, UC Merced Health Sciences Research Institute
- 2016 - “The Effects of Racial and Class Neighborhood Composition on Community Garden Outcomes” Annual Meeting of the American
Public Health Association, poster presentation
- 2015 - “The Effects of Race and Class on Community Garden Locations.” Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association
- 2015 - “Straddling Two Worlds: Does Visiting Home Help or Harm First Generation Students' College Engagement?,”
with Irenee Beattie and Wendy Puquirre. Annual Conference of the Sociology of Education Association
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