Spring School-PhD course May 19-23, 2025

With daily seminars by Engin Isin and contributions by Cristina Grasseni, Robin Smith, Joost Jongerden, and Han Wiskerke

Fair and just agriculture and food systems have been central issues in policy and practice for much of the 20th and 21st centuries. Peasants, consumers, and social movements have been fighting for rights such as land ownership, access to healthy food, and the right to determine our agricultural and food futures for many decades, if not centuries. Few have conceptualized this in terms of citizenship. Yet by questioning what is fair, just, and right, challenging the working of our agrarian and food systems, and practising alternatives people establish themselves as citizens, and more specifically as agrarian and food citizens.

The graduate course and summer school, “Democracy in Agriculture and Food Provisioning: A Citizenship Lens” offers a unique opportunity for MSc and PhD students and early-career scholars to explore the concept of agrarian and food citizenship. Participants will engage in challenging seminars and lively debates about our current agrarian and food systems and the actions through which people and social movements struggle for fair and just agricultural and food provisioning. By adopting the perspective of a critical theory of citizenship, we will examine how individuals, social movements, and various forms of collective action work towards achieving equitable and just agricultural and food systems.

Key topics explored include, but are not limited to:

– Approaches and debates on citizenship and its relevance for democratizing agriculture and food provisioning;

-The concept of citizenship as a lens for understanding the governance of agriculture and food provisioning

– The role of social movements and everyday practices in questioning and democratizing our relationship with agriculture and food, and each other;

– Methodological challenges in bringing the food citizenship lens to the study of democracy in agriculture and food provisioning.

Join us in exploring these critical issues and contribute to the development of fair and just agricultural and food systems.

Method
The course adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon insights from political sciences, rural sociology, environmental studies, and critical agrarian studies.

The morning seminars in this course are led by Engin Isin, based on his latest book Citizenship, in which he outlines a critical theory of citizenship. In the afternoons we explore these struggles in the context of democratization of our relations with agriculture and food. We do this through discussions, workshops, creative methods, and excursions with, among others, Cristina Grassini, Robin Smith and Han Wiskerke.

Instructors
Engin Isin. Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Engin Isin studies and teaches the ways in which people make themselves agents of politics through acts, movements, and struggles.

Cristina Grasseni. Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University, Cristina Grasseni specialises in economic, political and visual anthropology.  Grasseni received the ERC Consolidator Grant for Food citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale (2017-2022).

Joost Jongerden. Associate professor Do-it-Yourself Development at the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University

Robin Smith. Post-doctoral fellow anthropology at the Copenhagen Business School. She  studies how farmers and rural business owners shape their daily and personal lives, with an emphasis on how they come to understand their role in developing and governing their local market and politics.

Han Wiskerke. Professor of Rural Sociology at Wageningen University. He studies and teaches about the dynamics and diversity of farming and food provisioning and their impact on rural and regional development. 

Registration
https://www.wur.nl/en/activity/democracy-in-agriculture-and-food-provisioning-a-citizenship-lens-3-ects.

Coordination and more information
joost.jongerden@wur.nl