Fitzhugh Shaw (he/they) lives uphill from Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania, United States, with his wife and child. He’s a white descendant of Chickasaw and Scottish ancestors. He’s an urban farmer engaged in food justice, soil-building, and land healing for a Black-led and Black-serving non-profit in Pittsburgh. He’s also an ancestor-wrangler, writer, artist, and frequent napper. He takes care of two dogs, one cat, a school of fish, two humans, a flock of hens, and a whole lotta mushroom and plant people.
In his scholarship, Fitzhugh explores intersections between peoples’ histories, ritual practice, political movements, and food systems. In his fiction, he dreams histories of a liberatory future. His art practice expands through the cracks in our current ideologies, wondering about the kinds of listening that are possible when we release our purity and security blankets.
Fitzhugh is driven to make his descendants proud. He’s motivated by their kindness and trust. Beyond that, he’s overjoyed by helping people connect more deeply to themselves, to their natural environments, and to their food. He believes in the need to be in deep, embodied conversation with the past in order to act radically and responsibly. Sometimes, he writes wordsatfoodpower.site
