Author: Giuseppe Collia

Project SHARE responds:

Response to the situation regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Food Security in Cumberland County, PA:

https://heatherbedi.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/county-food-assessment.pdf

Resources for PA residents during COVID-19, including increased access to SNAP, healthcare, etc.

Responding to COVID-19

PA closes restaurantes’ and bars’ dine-in service.  Dickinson was ahead of the game.

Wolf Administration Orders Restaurants and Bars to Close Dine-In Service in Mitigation Counties Including Allegheny To Stop Spread of COVID-19

Li Ziqi Podcast

My name is Giuseppe Collia and you’re listening to the Greta Thunberg Fan Club.

Last Friday, February 21st, 2020, Professor Yang spoke to our Food Studies Capstone Seminar about Chinese YouTuber and social media influence, Li Ziqi.  

https://raknife.com/li-zi-qi/

We learned that Li Ziqi was born and raised in rural China by her grandparents, having lost her parents to illness and poverty.  As she got older, like many Chinese people today, she decided to move to the city to seek better opportunities.

And actually, Li Ziqi’s migration to the city is not simply a Chinese phenomenon, but actually a tendency worldwide.  In 2007, the number of people worldwide living in urban areas surpassed that of those living in rural areas. The US and more developed countries are at about 80% urban populations while less developed countries are around 50% – and there’s no sign of stopping.

https://graylinegroup.com/urbanization-catalyst-overview/

But these are just trends.  Sometimes, people decide to leave the city.  In the US, New York City has seen large migrations out.  Young people move in looking for nightlife and job opportunities just out of college, but tend to move out when they become middle class families.  The fact of the matter is, it’s expensive, chaotic, and largely lawn-free, which for a lot of people’s preferences, is less than ideal when raising a family.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/why-is-everyone-leaving-the-city/521844/

Aften a stint in the city working in restaurants and as a DJ, Li Ziqi also returned to rural life.  But she wasn’t a married woman looking for a place to raise her children. In actuality, it was family that harked her home.  Her grandfather had died and her grandmother was in poor health. She felt called back to care for her grandmother who had cared so much for her in her formative years.

This makes me think about my own situation.  My father’s health is also waning and I feel somewhat called to assist him and the family in his care.  Currently, my aunt and uncle care for him as I am in college, however as I am soon graduating, I feel pressure to move home to support them all.

Back home, she began to make videos that she would post online, both on YouTube and on the Chinese equivalent video uploading platform.  Her videos today are a beautiful process of making food from scratch, sometimes from foraged or farmed ingredients, fermented at home, cooked and plated with incredible intent.

Some people see this as a poor representation of China.  Li Ziqi paints a beautiful picture of rural China where many others live in poverty.  Others think that Li Ziqi is creating an honorable outward facing image of China, presenting it well to the world.

Another representation in this case is the simplicity of Chinese culture and the care for family.  The US is generally considered to be an individualistic society, putting a lot of influence on personal success, while China has historically been more collective, valuing the family.  However research seems to suggest that China is becoming more individualistic in a time of rapid socioeconomic and political change in China.  

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3839668/

Li Ziqi returned home to care for her grandmother, and I too feel the pressure to move home to care for my father.  Is this a poor representation of new Chinese individual tendencies, or is this simply the tail end of a collective one?  Will I go home to care for my father after graduation, or pursue my own life and ambitions?  Is there right and wrong to morality here, or are these simply differing points of view based upon lived experience?

Using Formative Research to Design a Behavior Change Strategy to Increase the Use of Improved Cookstoves in Peri-Urban Kampala, Uganda
https://dickinson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01DICKINSON_INST/1hd8ko0/doaj_soai_doaj_org_article_840d72c455644d888caec4d5c4388988

This article aims to get a population to adopt the use of a tool. At Dickinson, we may aim to get our community to adopt the Ecotainer. Learning from the strategies of this study may serve us in our project.

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Understanding pivotal experiences in behavior change for the design of technologies for personal wellbeing
https://dickinson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01DICKINSON_INST/1hd8ko0/elsevier_sdoi_10_1016_j_jbi_2018_01_002

This article examines how to capture people in pivotal moments and also how to design for people who are not motivated for behavior change. This can help us to design for first year students and for the beginning of semesters, two examples of when people experience change. This can also help us to design more generally.

Home

This is a platform with behavior change methodologies. Rare believes that Climate Change Needs Behavior Change. Dickinson has a good sustained partnership with Rare following the 2017 Rose-Walters Prize and the 2019 Be.HiveU Summit on Dickinson’s campus.

https://www.devanshisihare.com/behavior-change

This is a method that another group used to make design changes for behavior change.  This would likely apply better for the Union Station, which is a place I am more familiar with and may be a place for more applicable change and before scaling to other dining locations.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1q7NA-RN5NgomkOqfyeJe4-HrbK0IyPTkTRkqCQJIV2c/edit?usp=sharing

Today we talked about food, gender, and sexuality with Prof. Yooris.  We discussed the article “Lesbian Potlucks” and the comic series “Dykes To Watch Out For.”  I don’t know much about lesbian culture so I learned a bit today about some stereotypes.  I found the theory of homonormativity to be very interesting.  The idea is that same-sex couples are the same as hetero couples, but that this idea upholds harmful institutions anyway.  For example, the nuclear family would have a mother, father, son, and daughter.  Swapping out the father for another mother does not challenge the idea that a family must be two parents with two children.  Rather, we must also recognize the possibility for other family types such as those that sleep in separate beds, those without children, single parents, poly families, etc.

Giuseppe Collia
31 January 2020
FDST 400
Assignment 1

What I ate for three days:
Jan 27
Breakfast: skipped
Lunch: 1 bun, 3 slices breaded eggplant, lettuce, tomato, applesauce, another bun, applesauce, 2 more slices of eggplant, seasoned chickpeas, asparagus, 2 glasses of water
Snack: M&Ms with peanuts
Dinner: yogurt (some greek, some vanilla), granola, raisins, sunflower seeds, honey, quinoa cake, tomato sauce, ½ glass of lemonade
Snack: A few banana chips, a raisin, 2 pieces of toblerone, 2 Dove milk chocolate, 1 candy cane kiss

Jan 28
Breakfast: frosted mini wheats, soy milk, glass of water, blueberry muffin, a coffee, sugar, oatmilk
Lunch: beet burger, brioche, frisee, peas, fries, ketchup, 1 half strawberry, 2 glasses of water
Dinner: 2.5 quinoa meatballs, vegan chili, omelet, spinach, muenster cheese, 1 slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and honey, 1 glass of water
Snack: 1 small red banana, 1 dove chocolates, 100 cal pretzels

Jan 29
Breakfast: 1 red banana, handful of nuts and cranberries
Lunch: beet burger, 2 slices white bread, bbq sauce, chana masala, cous cous, 3 rugelach
Snack: chocolate chip cookie, iced mocha
Dinner: BBQ tofu, bun, lemon pie, ¼ waffle with honey

• Ingredients that stand out:
• Wheat – bread, muffin, waffle, buns
  • Worldwide, most production is industrial. This includes seed drilling, large swaths of lands in monoculture, combines for harvesting and threshing, and crop rotation with other staple crops.
  • Wheat production is worldwide, significant production in North America, Europe and across Asia, with other smaller but often growing swaths in Africa, South America, and Australia. This represents significant growing on every continent but Antarctica.
  • Industrial ag, including that which grows wheat, is a main cause of deforestation worldwide. It also contributes to air and water pollution. Consuming wheat supports demand for this process.
  • Miles: Probably from within the USA, because we export it.
• Chocolate – chocolates, hot chocolate, coffee, cookie
  • Cocoa, in its various forms, are the main ingredient in chocolate.
  • Cocoa beans are grown in agroindustrial fields and by millions of small-holding farmers, the majority coming from small plots. A tree takes 4 to 5 years to come into production. Once in production, it may have up to 6000 flowers per year, but usually just about 20 bear fruit annually. 40 pods are needed to make 1 kg of cocoa paste. Hershey’s, Nestle, and Mars are major procurers and source from various sources.
  • Cocoa’s native range is Mesoamerica. Today’s largest producers of cocoa are these countries in descending order: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador, others – note: most cocoa is grown outside of its native range which represents a replacement of native ecosystems with this crop.
  • Displacement of native ecosystems, exploitation of cheap labor in lesser developed countries, exporting of raw materials from lesser developed countries, commodities that represent the majority of the economies of these countries are some sustainability challenges related to cocoa production
  • Miles: avg between Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Indonesia: 6666 miles
• Chickpeas – chana masala, sides
  • Chickpeas can be planted and harvested mechanically like other legumes. It is considered a specialty crop in the US, but its production method does not vary significantly from that of soy.
  • Likely originally from the Middle East. Important in Indian, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern cuisines. In 2017, 67% of chickpeas were grown in India.
  • Machines contribute to soil disturbance, and water and air pollution.
  • Miles: Average between Montana and India: 4000
• Water – I drink mainly water
  • Comes from the Conodoguinet, needs processing, mostly electricity uses – the majority of our electricity comes from fossil fuel sources.
    Comes from close.
• BBQ sauce – tofu, beet burger, dipping for most things
• Sugar – in a ton of stuff, including some of the things I listed above
• More fruit than I had expected, to be completely honest

My diet is primarily plant-based, which significantly reducing my carbon footprint, nevertheless food production, not unlike any other activity, has an impact on the world around us.

Hi y’all,

My name is Giuseppe Collia.  I am a senior Environmental Studies and Spanish double major.  I have focused my time at Dickinson on language and cultural studies and their intersections with sustainability.  My interest within Food Studies lies in climate action, using a systems thinking approach to combating climate change through both institutional and collective action.  As a final project, I would like to use methods of behavior science to evoke a call to action among viewers.

Giuseppe Collia