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Abstract
This Capstone concerns the social problem of economic injustice in the contemporary food system. Economic injustice is prevalent throughout the food system, including problems of labor exploitation and concentration of ownership. I want to better understand how these injustices are addressed in alternative agricultural spaces, such as agroecology. Agroecology is a dynamic concept that promotes transforming food systems to be more sustainable and socially equitable. Through a lens of social justice, I review agroecology discourse and investigate how it identifies, responds to, and challenges economic injustice. The Overall Research Question asks what are the ways in which the discourse of agroecology addresses economic injustice in the contemporary food system? My constitutive research questions ask what general instances of economic injustice are identified in discourse, what are the causes of those instances identified, and what are the cures to economic injustice identified in agroecological discourse. My analytical criteria for these questions include instances of inadequate wages, improper working conditions, quality and health of well-being, corporate control, concentration of wealth, imbalance of power, and inequitable distribution of resources. I approach this research through an inductive thematic analysis where I discover patterns and themes that are discussed in the discourse. The most significant finding is that there quite a bit of discussion of the potential of agroecology, especially concerning a more equitable distribution of resources. Yet, while agroecological discourse does identify problems of economic injustice, as well as their causes and cures, there is a need for specificity on these topics. More specifically, agroecology does not clearly indicate how this goal would address the economic injustices of labor exploitation and concentration of ownership.