SLOW FOOD AFFINITY GROUPS
Overview of Slow Food Affinity Groups
An affinity is defined as a group of people having a common interest or goal or acting together for a specific purpose. The Slow Food movement worldwide attracts people expressing a shared investment in food justice through their beautiful, multifaceted, and very often intersectional lenses of lived experience. We currently nurture two affinity groups to invest in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Slow Food activists in the US and LGBTQ2S+ folx around the world.
BIPOC AFFINITY GROUP
Slow Food USA (SFUSA) has been on its own journey of Equity, Inclusion and Justice (EIJ) since 2017. Along with our commitment to listening, being honest, furthering our own education, taking appropriate action, and encouraging a diverse range of perspectives and experiences, we have been hosting an affinity group for Black and Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) for the last year.
An affinity is defined as a group of people having a common interest or goal or acting together for a specific purpose. The purposes of this group are for BIPOC folx to gather in community:
- To celebrate and discuss
- To be seen, heard and related to
- To come together and create a safe space for sharing experiences
- To drive change and to use “strength in numbers” to help address particular issues
Our mission for this affinity group is to create an intentional space for BIPOC leaders across our food system, including members of the Slow Food network as well as adjacent community organizers, to build skills and be supported. Our vision is for a diverse community to emerge empowered to take part in the co-creation of a robust food movement and culture that walks the talk of SFUSA’s commitment to EIJ and that improves the experiences and engagement of BIPOC folx throughout Slow Food as an international movement.
While this group is ultimately self-determined in actions and outcomes, one of our overarching hopes is that the BIPOC Affinity Group can serve as an advisory group or guiding counterpart to SFUSA’s antiracism work and equity agenda. This group may even aspire to catalyze justice-oriented projects and programming to be supported or developed by SFUSA.
Current meeting foci include (but are not limited to):
- Recipes / cooking
- Campaigns / actions
- Books discussion / reading group
- Growing / foraging
- Just be / celebration
LGBTQ2S+ AFFINITY GROUP
After an informal gathering of LGBTQ2S+ identified attendees at the September 2022 edition of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, a slow groundswell of interest across the Slow Food network has culminated in regular meetings of queer Slow Food folx. Multiple continents and languages come together to explore the beautifully unique queer food experience, and work to advance visibility, representation and inclusion of LGBTQ2S+ people in the Slow Food network across the world.