Digital food apartheid: The uneven food geographies of Seattle in the era of Amazon

Abstract

This article puts forward the concept of “digital food apartheid” to articulate differentiation in terms of one’s agency concerning their food that is mediated by, reified through, or materialized from data or digital infrastructure given the omnipresence of racial capitalism. We examine the digitization of public food assistance in the United States in conversation with Black digital geographies, food geographies, and critical GIS, paying particular attention to the US Department of Agriculture’s COVID-19-era Online Grocery Purchase Program (OPP), which gives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants access to online grocery shopping and delivery. We call into question the conditions of possibility that gave rise to this program through a historicization of US food assistance. Empirically, we map the “Amazon Fresh” grocery delivery area around Seattle overlaid with SNAP participants and census tracts designated as “low income and low food access” by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to visualize the program’s current operationalization. Our critical GIS approach allows us to analyze our empirics in relation to the rhetorical and political moves of the state to demonstrate how digital food apartheid determines which foods are marketed to, available to, and accessible to whom.