Food apartheid in Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley as a fractal representation of a global racialized corporate food regime

Abstract

Framed within studies of racial capitalism and neoliberal corporate food regimes this article examines how residents of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela Valley experience and articulate food apartheid, a racialized system of food access, and how their experiences intersect with processes of deindustrialization, capital abandonment, and structural racism. Findings from engagements across three Mon Valley municipalities reveal complex geographies of food apartheid that intersect with other signifiers of racial capitalism: inequitable transportation infrastructure, an increasing cost of living coinciding with a decrease in quality of life, and ineffective political representation. Residents interpret these inequities as a manifestation of a broader racialized economic injustice that privileges neighboring, predominantly white municipalities. Such spatial inequities are compounded by a distrust of local government, which is often perceived as not responding to community demands but instead as perpetuating exclusionary policies. In the context of these social, spatial, and political economic inequities, participants imagine community-driven solutions including but extending beyond food system and urban agriculture initiatives. Community visions are grounded in prefigurative civic action and intersectional responses to food, transportation, health, and housing, that build grassroots leadership and strengthen community resilience and self-determination in the Mon Valley.