Last weekend I presented a poster about my research on North Texas local farmers to visitors at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Poster presentations are an opportunity to have a more direct conversation about my research.
I recorded separate videos for each part of the poster presentation, beginning with an introduction to this week's blog and the poster is at the bottom of the post. Watch to find out more about local farming in North Texas today.
I begin the poster presentations by explaining my own background and why I am interested in food. An interesting thing I have found is that food is a very personal subject to many people, so I do not usually start talking unless the person viewing the poster looks like they have a question or want to chat.
The research question answers why I am interested in knowing more about local food farmers as well as why North Texas is an interesting case study for this type of research. I discuss a little bit of North Texas history and talk some about population growth in the area.
I describe the research participants and explain how their qualifications to be a participant were determined. I also explain the value of looking at the local food network as a whole.
Methods are important because they explain the processes used to collect all of the data. My methods as an anthropologist are qualitative, looking at insider perspectives or a user's experience. In this case, the experience is of the people growing and supporting local food.
The analysis is an explanation of some themes that I found or the answers to some of the questions in the research. The analysis of these local food farmers shows the breadth of goods and produce available through the local food system and some of the value it offers.
The discussion is sort of the anthropologist's take on what is going on here. In this instance, I focus on different forms of pathways to success and explain how these work within the local food and farming community.
And finally, the conclusion is the final summary of findings from the research. In this case, I was originally looking to what makes local food farmers successful and what that network looks like, but in the end I can not help but talk about the values that I found present in the local food system.
And that's basically how a poster presentation goes. I create the poster the way I would a presentation, with quite a bit to say about each section, and the people who come and see it ask questions if they have any.
It was a pleasure to join all of the researchers at the museum and to discuss this research. I'm almost finished with the Journal of Best Practices, and I have some farm activity blog posts planned after that.