Meet Jennifer Jettner, Ph.D. candidate
Jennifer Jettner is a doctoral candidate in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work. She is passionate about promoting food security, food justice and food sovereignty — who gets to eat, what do they eat and how what they eat is produced. She believes that food issues are symptomatic of structural inequities and have the power to galvanize social movements at local and global levels.
Jettner’s dissertation is a mixed method study that examines community gardeners’ perceptions of the role gardens play in promoting food justice. She explores organizational practices, decision-making processes, demographics and social capital benefits to gain insights about who the “community” is in these community gardens and who benefits from them. She aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how these gardens function, the various ways food justice is conceived and addressed by gardeners and the extent to which these interventions may promote social justice. Her study will provide a foundation to build antiracist and anti-oppressive social work community practice within the realm of environmental justice.
Jettner, a dissertation scholarship winner for the 2016-17 academic year, has teaching experience in B.S.W. and M.S.W. programs, including the hybrid M.S.W. program distance-education format. Her teaching interests include social justice and human diversity, macro and community practice, research methods and food justice. She also is excited to contribute to the emerging field of environmental social work education.
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