Meet Our Visiting Scholar: Andrea Rizo Barroso, Universitat de Barcelona

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We are delighted to welcome Andrea Rizo Barroso, a PhD candidate from the Universitat de Barcelona’s Food Action and Research Observatory (FARO), as a Visiting Scholar at RSO. Andrea’s work sits at the intersection of gender, food systems, and social inequality—an area of growing importance in contemporary food studies.

Research Focus

Andrea’s research explores how gender inequalities shape urban food environments and influence food security, particularly among vulnerable communities in Spain. Centering women’s lived experiences, her work seeks to build a critical and situated understanding of how urban food systems operate within broader structures of gender, access, and vulnerability. Her ambition is to shed light on the often-overlooked gendered dimensions of food insecurity and to contribute to more just and equitable food system transformations.

Current Work at RSO

During her stay at RSO, Andrea is focusing on advancing her paper, “Exploring Gender Dimensions in Urban Food Environments: A Systematic Scoping Review.” She is also refining the analytical framework for her PhD thesis and immersing herself in participatory methodologies such as photovoice—tools that will allow her research to more fully reflect the realities and perspectives of the women she works with.

Her work resonates strongly with collaborative initiatives like SWIFT, a project dedicated to equitable, gender-responsive food system transformation, creating rich opportunities for synergy and shared learning.

Why RSO and Wageningen?

Andrea chose RSO for its international reputation in research on power, inequality, and food systems—themes central to her own scholarly focus. The Rural Sociology Group’s commitment to equity and social justice aligns closely with her values and the communities she aims to represent in her work. Wageningen, with its vibrant academic environment, provides the ideal setting for interdisciplinary engagement and critical dialogue.

Beyond Research

Outside her academic pursuits, Andrea brings great energy and creativity to her life. She loves dancing salsa and bachata, enjoys hiking, and is always ready to explore new places through travel. Her passion for movement, nature, and discovery enriches both her personal and professional journey.

We are excited to have Andrea with us and look forward to the insights her research will bring to ongoing conversations about gender and food system transformation.

Agriculture in Rojava and the Making of a Decolonial Future

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How a grassroots revolution in northern Syria is redefining democracy, ecology, and decolonization from the ground up. An blog-post/article by Joost Jongerden and Necmettin Türk

When the Syrian civil war fractured the authority of the central state, a new kind of revolution took root in the country’s north. In the Kurdish-majority regions known as Rojava, communities seized the opportunity not to build a new state, but to build a new society based on self-administration. Much of the existing scholarship on Rojava has focused on this network of self-organized communes and regions, particularly in relation to questions of recognition, namely the development of a governance model that is inclusive of various cultural, ethnic, and religious communities. Yet far less attention has been paid to the decolonization of Rojava’s agrarian economy—a transformation that is equally fundamental to the region’s broader project of liberation.

read more here: https://theamargi.com/posts/agriculture-in-rojava-and-the-making-of-a-decolonial-future

Constructing Ties: How Security Narratives Led to the Defunding of UAWC in Occupied Palestinian Territories

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The thesis “Unpacking the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Decision to Stop Funding UAWC” examines how security narratives led the Netherlands to end its funding in 2022 for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). For many years, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs had supported this Palestinian NGO, which worked to improve the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers, particularly in Area C — the part of the illegally occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank that remains under direct Israeli military control. The research into the reasons behind the decision to defund UAWC is based on documents obtained through the Dutch Transparency Act (Wet Open Overheid, or WOO), comprising more than 1,100 pages of written communications.

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EU Cultivate – Replication study Freiburg – Zusammen Leben x WUR x Cascoland

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Plan

During the replication phase of the EU Cultivate project, WUR will travel with the Library of Citizen engagement to the Food Sharing initiatives in each of the six spoke locations.

Our first stop ? Freiburg im Breisgau – where WUR & CASCOLAND visited CULTIVATE partner Zusammen Leben.  

Zusammen Leben – (German for Living together) have been managing a 3500 square meter community garden – as an intercultural meeting space since 2016. And as part of the ten year anniversary of this intercultural civic space, Zusammen Leben hosted a Lab &Kitchen at the garden. As explained in our library, Lab & kitchen is a creative methodology that fosters collaboration, bridges knowledge systems and engages communities through participatory cooking and good sharing activities. Importantly, Lab&Kitchen evolves with each iteration, responding to specific community needs. In designing this Lab&Kitchen, Zusammen Leben and CASCOLAND agreed that engaging people with a migration background should take priority.

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Food Commons – Summer School 2025

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This June, the Rural Sociology Group (RSO) hosted its first ever Food Commons Summer School. In a new blog, Rohit Dash shares his experiences and insights from the event.

What if food could be shared like stories. What if, we could build the truly proverbial village in our communities to raise a farm of delicious, cared for and nutritious food. Imagine a world, where food systems were entirely “Commoned” stripped from the materialist notions of private ownership, instead nurtured by care and collective stewardship. How do we get to this utopia? Was there ever a precedent to such an utopia? or are there examples of islands of utopia that remain hidden in plain sight?

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