Foraging in the Urban Food Forest: Noticing the Possibilities for Communal Cultivation within Urban Ruination

In this thesis, I use the Beacon Food Forest, located in Seattle, WA, as a case study to investigate how food and community grow in an urban community food forest. I discuss the founding of the Beacon Food Forest, the complex and overlapping history of the permaculture and agroecology movements, and the capitalistic process of urbanization that creates ruination of productive land. I pose Beacon Food Forest as a space to uncover a latent food commons that grows through this urban ruination to foster collaborative survival. I draw from scholars such as Anna Tsing, J.K. Gibson Graham, Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Ivan Illich, James Miller, and others to explore how a convivial commons is sustained at the Beacon Food Forest. I tie this into broader discussions of food justice and food sovereignty to highlight how the Beacon Food Forest can promote meaningful relationships between humans and non-human beings which works to undo the alienation between urban consumers and their food sources in the industrial food system.