We invite you to attend the CSPS Critical Food Studies Speaker Series on March 19th, featuring Emma Roe and Paul Hurley (University of Southampton). Their research explores the role of gender and care in sustainable diets.

When:    19 March 2019    15.30-17.30

Where:   Leeuwenborch, lecture hall C 62

Programme

15.30-15.40          Walk-in with coffee

15.40-15.45          Introduction and welcome (Dr Stefan Wahlen, CSPS Foodscapes Cluster)

15.45-17.00          Sustainable diets, masculinities and environmental caring: Gendered understandings of movements towards sustainable agro-food practices, Dr Paul Hurley & Dr Emma Roe, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton

17.00-17.30          Discussion with drinks and bites

Abstract:

The impact of industrial scale food production poses significant threats to environmental sustainability. Despite the current rising trends of veganism, ‘flexitarianism’ and ‘reducetarianism’ in some areas, global levels of animal-based protein consumption are on the rise – between 1993-2013 global population increased by 29%, yet global demand for animals’ products increased by 62% (Food and Agriculture Organization (2014) State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014: In Brief (FAO, Rome)). The IPCC has recently suggested that dietary shifts (reducing meat consumption as well as shortening supply chains and lessening food waste), could play a significant factor in climate change mitigation (IPCC (2018) SR1.5).

An often overlooked dimension of sustainability issues is that of gender (see, for instance, UNFCCC’s work on Women and Climate Change).The performance of diverse masculinities is receiving increased attention more widely, following the popular critical label of ‘toxic masculinity’ and its association with a raft of negative practices from the #MeToo campaign, through to weak leadership on global environmental challenges. This is a timely moment to increase studies on the cultural, social and political dynamics that drive the performances of diverse forms of masculinity, in order to appraise how to offer more environmentally sustainable forms of living.

Recent work by Roe and Hurley in their project ‘Man Food: Exploring men’s opportunities for ‘Becoming an ecological citizen’ through protein-related food practices’, focusses explicitly on studying practices of being a man in relation to food and environmental caring. Through a series of participatory workshops, in which researchers cooked, ate and talked with groups of men, they have sought to understand more about the interaction of gendered identity norms and barriers to ecological caring and responsibility. Key findings of the project include the fact that a number of men had experienced shame and bullying about choosing vegetarian food options among groups of other men, and that others were willing to try alternatives to meat-based meals but hadn’t had the social reference points to encourage them to do so (lacking peers who didn’t eat meat, or the skills to cook vegetarian food). More recent work has begun to consider these gendered practices of food and environmental caring within the broader social and political contexts of populism, both in the UK and more widely.

We are living in the age of the celebrity farmer, in which farmers can gain “rock-star” status for their sustainable farming techniques and gastronomic partnerships  – but also for their identity, self-branding, education, and marketing activities on social media (Phillpov and Goodman 2017). Social media platforms such as Instagram, and the companies that profit through them, have the potential to reinforce dominant identities and “brands.” At the same time they are also being used to make more marginalized identities, food knowledges, movements, and narratives visible (Wilson, forthcoming). The interplay between these food spaces, identities, and technologies is investigated through the concept of digital foodscapes (Goodman et al. 2017).

The digital foodscapes of agri-food work are changing the face of farming, and have the potential to upset and challenge existing stereotypes and perceptions of farm workers and rural spaces. In the U.S. for example, where 60% of farmers are foreign born (largely from Central and South America) and 30% are women, the image of farmers as white and male still dominates in mainstream media and food marketing. In a different vein, the current political landscape in the U.S. could give the (erroneous} impression of rural spaces as white, right wing and nationalist, and urban spaces as diverse, liberal and progressive. The visibility of other kinds of farmer identities in digital foodscapes may play an important role in interrupting, bringing to light, or challenging the “demographic fever dreams and fantasies” that shape perceptions of the rural and urban (Gokariskel et al.).

This research will develop comparative case studies in connection with social media accounts and hashtags that promote the activities (and identities) of women farmers (e.g. @Womenwhofarm) and queer farmers (e.g. @Queerswhofarm) on Instagram. The research will explore which identities are made visible, how, where, and for whom. While also applying feminist and queer theory to critically examine the kinds of identities and performances that gain traction and power in these digital foodscapes, and who might be excluded. The overall aim of this research is to develop a better understanding of the role that social media technologies can play in reimagining agri-food work, workers, and spaces.

Start date: Spring or Summer 2019

Qualifications:           

• You have some training in qualitative methods and critical social theory
• You are an interested in gender and sexuality and sustainable agri-food systems
• You are willing to develop new methodologies and tools for analysing social media
• You are registered for one of the following MSc programmes: MID, MCS, MLP, MFT, or MOA
• You have completed at least 2 RSO courses (or relevant social science courses)

Questions? Please get in touch!

Supervisor: Oona Morrow (RSO) oona.morrow@wur.nl

Works Cited & Further Reading:

Farm Aid: Immigration and the food system (2019)  https://www.farmaid.org/blog/fact-sheet/immigration-and-the-food-system/ (last accessed 3/8/19)

Gokariskel, B., Neubert, C., & Smith, S. (2019). Demographic Fever Dreams: Fragile Masculinity and Population Politics in the Rise of the Global Right. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(3), 561–587.

Gokariskel et al. (2017) CALL FOR PAPERS (AAG 2017): Demographic fantasies and fever dreams: taco trucks, lesbian farmers, burkini bans, and the basket of deplorables

Gold, M. and Thompson, B. (2019) U.S. Statistics on Women and Minorities on Farms and in Rural Areas. USDA, https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/us-statistics-women-and-minorities-farms-and-rural-areas

Goodman, M. K., Johnston, J., & Cairns, K. (2017). Food, media and space: The mediated biopolitics of eating. Geoforum, 84(Supplement C), 161-168.

Jarosz, L. (2011). Nourishing women: toward a feminist political ecology of community supported agriculture in the United States. Gender, Place, and Culture, 18(3), 307–326.

Leslie, I. S. (2017). Queer farmers: Sexuality and the transition to sustainable agriculture. Rural Sociology, 82(4), 747-771

Morrow, O., Hawkins, R., & Kern, L. (2015). Feminist research in online spaces. Gender, Place & Culture, 22(August), 526–543.

Phillipov, M., & Goodman, M. K. (2017). The celebrification of farmers: celebrity and the new politics of farming. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 346-350.

Queerswhofarm (2019) https://www.instagram.com/queerswhofarm/ (last accessed 3/8/19)

Slocum, R., & Saldanha, A. (Eds.). (2016). Geographies of race and food: Fields, bodies, markets. Routledge..

Wilson, A. (forthcoming) Vegan Instagram Influencers: A critical analysis of the discourses around food, consumerism, and responsibility. Msc Thesis: Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University

Womenwhofarm (2019)  https://www.instagram.com/womenwhofarm/?hl=en (last accessed 3/8/19)

In period 5, from March 18 till April 26, we’ll be teaching again RSO-55306 A Global  Sense of Place: Place-based approaches to development.  Registration for the course is open until February 17, 2019.

A Global Sense of Place  is an optional interdisciplinary course on sustainable place-based development for students from various master programmes (e.g. MDR, MES, MID, MLP, MUE, MOA, MFN).  The course aims to make students acquainted with interdisciplinary and place-based approaches to development. This advanced MSc course might also be of interest to PhD candidates associated with the Centre for Space, Place and Society.

By means of this course students will achieve profound understanding in key-concepts and methods on place-based sustainable development. Work from key thinkers in sustainable place-making will be critically discussed and examined on the basis of various cases. Guest speakers are invited to reflect on place-based approaches to sustainable development and illustrate these through case studies. Ultimately students will acquire a place-based perspective on development.

Language of instruction and examination is English. Classes are taught on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoon. See course schedule.

Key lecturers: Joost Jongerden, Dirk Roep and Anke de Vrieze (RSO).

For more information, please contact Anke de Vrieze, anke.devrieze@wur.nl.

Cultivating hope while getting into trouble with Community Food Initiatives (CFIs)

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, August 28^th-30^th 2019

Session sponsored by: Food Geographies Working Group

Community food initiatives (CFIs), such as community gardens or food waste initiatives, are often framed as hopeful solutions to our troubled food system. Yet the actual interrelations of hope and trouble are rarely interrogated in locally specific contexts. Hope and trouble are often employed in partial and limiting ways. CFIs are critiqued for being too hopeful, reproducing existing troubles (e.g. racism, power, privilege, and exclusion). Other readings strategically avoid the dominance of trouble, to leave space for hope and possibility. Neither approach is sufficient. Moreover, binary affects of hope and trouble can create methodological tensions that effect our own abilities to engage in action research that is both critical and reparative, hopeful and troubling.

The aim of this session is to develop new methodological, theoretical, and practice-based approaches for interrogating CFIs as sites of hope and trouble. Exploring diverse organizational forms, actors, benefits, and impacts, enables an understanding of their hopes, best intentions, and generative capacities as well as their troubles, failures, and limitations. We are interested in new stories and tools for helping researchers and community food initiatives “get into trouble” in our food system.

We welcome empirically, methodologically, and/or theoretically driven papers and discussions that engage with the hope and trouble of community food initiatives, such as:

• Food waste initiatives
• Food banks
• Community gardens
• Alternative food networks
• Solidarity purchasing groups
• Food Cooperatives
• Social enterprises
• Food advocacy organizations

We propose a format of two successive sessions. The first session follows the general structure of paper presentations followed by time for questions and short discussions. We use the second session for more thorough in-depth discussion. The first hour will be used for a world cafe setting to discuss recurrent themes in groups. We will use the last forty minutes for a ‘talk show’: we ask a representative from each table to come forward. We will then discuss the findings of each group by way of a talk show format: one interviewer asks questions to the representatives, potentially leading to discussions or an exchange of ideas. With this set-up we hope to elicit lively discussions on the topic, from various viewpoints and entry points.

Please contact the convenors to indicate whether you would like to present a paper and/or whether you would like to participate in the world cafe. Paper abstracts due by February 1^st.

Session Convenors: Esther Veen (esther.veen@wur.nl), Oona Morrow (oona.morrow@wur.nl), Stefan Wahlen (stefan.wahlen@wur.nl), Anke de Vrieze (anke.devrieze@wur.nl)

Voor een deel van de leerlingen in het primair en voortgezet onderwijs werkt een schoolse omgeving soms (tijdelijk) contraproductief. Het gaat vooral om leerlingen voor wie de structuur en aanpak van een school te ingewikkeld is, kinderen die moeite hebben met sociale relaties en het in stand houden van vriendschappen, kinderen met hechtingsproblemen, kinderen die door een beperking niet uren achtereen op een stoel kunnen zitten. Kinderen dus die het moeilijk hebben met zichzelf en hun omgeving en daarom op een gegeven ogenblik niet meer naar school willen, kunnen, mogen, of durven. Voor deze groep is vaak geen passend onderwijs in de regio beschikbaar, en deze leerlingen komen vaak noodgedwongen thuis te zitten. Dit kan leiden tot moeilijk gedrag, een negatief zelfbeeld en een toekomst zonder perspectief.

Verschillende zorgboeren bieden deze leerlingen onderwijs op de boerderij. Een groep van ongeveer 20 van deze zorgboeren heeft een netwerk gevormd om ervaringen en knelpunten te delen. Problemen zijn bijvoorbeeld gebrek aan uitwisseling en onderbouwing van kennis, knellende regelgeving en de kloof tussen zorgboerderijen en scholen. Bovendien is geen goed zicht op het aantal leerlingen die onderwijs volgen op de boerderij (en hun specifieke problemen), en de ervaringen van boeren, leerlingen, ouders en scholen.

Om deze vragen te beantwoorden en uiteindelijk te komen tot een sterke, geaccepteerde en professionele onderwijssector, is de wetenschapswinkel van Wageningen UR een onderzoeksproject gestart. Binnen dit project zijn wij op zoek naar één of meerdere MSc studenten die voor een scriptie of stage onderzoek willen doen op verschillende gebieden zoals:

• Het in kaart brengen van de huidige situatie (omvang en inhoud van onderwijs op de boerderij, type leerling, samenwerkingsvormen tussen boerderij en school, financieringsvormen), alsmede ervaringen van boeren, leerlingen, ouders en onderwijspartners;
• Advies geven over mogelijke strategieën voor het versterken van de sector (belangrijkste knelpunten voor onderwijsboeren in kaart brengen, best practices beschrijven);
• Literatuuronderzoek naar de voor- en nadelen van de boerderij als onderwijslocatie.

Een specifieke opdracht kan samen met de student worden opgesteld. Studenten zullen onderdeel worden van het wetenschapswinkelproject (stages worden begeleid door Jan Hassink van Wageningen Plant Research). Voor meer informatie: esther.veen@wur.nl

On the 25th of September, the Foodscapes cluster of the Centre for Space, Place and Society (CSPS) organised a critical food studies work shop on the food sharing economy. We invited Karin Dobernig from Vienna to talk about the research that she conducted with her colleague Karin Schanes.

Karin gave a very interesting and inspiring talk on “Collective Action Around Food Waste: Investigating the determinants and characteristics of participation in food sharing initiatives”.

After the talk there was plenty of time to discuss food sharing in more detail. We tried to link the concept of foodscape to that of food sharing, and raised and discussed various questions. For instance, to what extent is food sharing an urban phenomenon? When sharing food, who is liable and should food savers and food sharers accept responsibility? How is this organised in different countries? Also, to what extent does food sharing cross the binary opposition between consumers and producers? Who are the recipients of food sharing, and should they always be in need? There were no clear answers to these questions that can easily be reproduced here, but the discussion was insightful.

This was the first activity organised by the Foodscapes cluster. We much enjoyed the presentation and the discussions. Hoping for more inspiring meetings in the future!

The Foodscapes cluster of the Centre for Space, Place and Society (CSPS) is pleased to announce the following workshop:

Foodscapes of the sharing economy

25 September 2018 – 13.45-17.00

Room C 62 in de Leeuwenborch (Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen)

During the recent decade, new modes of food provisioning have emerged under the guise of the sharing economy. A dominant picture of initiatives in the sharing economy is associated with platform capitalism and the gig economy. Yet, a variety of initiatives are using the tools of the sharing economy to promote sustainable consumption, thereby reducing our dependence on commercial activity and reducing the use and reliance on material possessions. This seminar will scrutinize the interconnections of the sharing economy and food, people and places. We are interested in food in the sharing economy, how exchanges are performed, by whom, and to what end. We want to provide an embodied understanding of food and place in the sharing economy. We are interested in issues of social, spatial and environmental justice, health and well-being in the sharing economy.

Program

13.45 – 14.00   Walking in

14.00 – 14.15   Introduction

14.15 – 15.00   Karin Dobernig and Karin Schanes: Collective Action Around Food Waste: Investigating the determinants and characteristics of participation in food sharing initiatives

15.00 – 15.15   Discussion

15.15 – 15.30   Coffee break

15.30-16.30     Roundtable discussion

With Karin Dobernig, Karin Schanes, Esther Veen, Oona Morrow, Stefan Wahlen

16.30-17.00     Drinks

About the foodscapes cluster:

The Foodscapes cluster brings together a variety of academic researchers and PhD candidates at Wageningen University, who are engaged in the multi-disciplinary domain of critical food studies.

The EU funded MSCA ITN project www.susplace.net is coming to an end in 2019 and for that matter a Final Event is organised to celebrate the results of the 15 research projects so far and the effort the project makes to further sustainability transformations as a science and as practice. One can now sign up and submit an abstract for a contribution. For more information see: www.lyyti.fi/p/susplace2019

via Visiting fellow and annual lecture: Erik Swyngedouw