‘It’s not that I can’t let it go … but it’s still there,’ Aneita tells me. It’s hard to shift the memory of not knowing how to make ends meet. ‘I’m not rich, I’m not absolutely poor, but – you know – I’m there, kind of lingering, in that in-between place.’
But ‘lingering’ doesn’t do justice to Aneita’s energy and activism. A single mother and mature student who has personally experienced food poverty, she’s part of the Blueprint Architects group – residents, growers and food justice organizers in Tower Hamlets, East London. Most members of the group are from working-class, Global South diaspora and migration backgrounds. Over the last two years they have joined forces to research a low-carbon, socially just urban food system. This feels crucial, in a deprived borough where hardship and inequality is compounded by environmental hazards such as heavy road pollution.
