The importance of sex-disaggregated and gender data to a gender-inclusive COVID-19 response in the aquatic food systems

The acceleration of ecological crises has driven a growing body of thinking on sustainability transitions. Agroecology is being promoted as an approach that can address multiple crises in the food system while addressing climate change and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Beyond the more technical definition as, “the ecology of food systems”, agroecology has a fundamentally political dimension. It is based on an aspiration towards autonomy or the agency of networks of producers and citizens to self-organize for sustainability and social justice. In this article, we use the multi-level perspective (MLP) to examine agroecology transformations. Although the MLP has been helpful in conceptualizing historic transitions, there is a need to better understand: (a) the role of and potential to self-organize in the context of power in the dominant regime, and (b) how to shift to bottom-up forms of governance—a weak point in the literature. Our review analyzes the enabling and disabling conditions that shape agroecology transformations and the ability of communities to self-organize. We develop the notion of ‘domains of transformation’ as overlapping and interconnected interfaces between agroecology and the incumbent dominant regime. We present six critical domains that are important in agroecological transformations: access to natural ecosystems; knowledge and culture; systems of exchange; networks; discourse; and gender and equity. The article focuses on the dynamics of power and governance, arguing that a shift from top down technocratic approaches to bottom up forms of governance based on community-self organization across these domains has the most potential for enabling transformation for sustainability and social justice.

Download Full-text

Transforming the Campus Foodscape Through Participatory Mapping

Case Studies in the Environment ◽

10.1525/cse.2020.1120325 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel ◽

Alastair Iles

Keyword(s):

Critical Pedagogy ◽

Campus Climate ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food System ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Community Members ◽

University Campuses ◽

Diverse Community ◽

And Gender ◽

The Individual

University campuses are dynamic foodscapes that meet the needs of thousands of diverse community members. These foodscapes are difficult to comprehend in their entirety, and inequities based on race, class, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, dis/ability, and other forms of marginalization often remain unidentified and unaddressed. Since 2015, the UC Berkeley Foodscape Mapping Project has emerged as a model of participatory, justice-oriented food systems education. Drawing on critical pedagogy principles, it uses the Berkeley campus as a living laboratory for students, staff, and faculty to generate food systems knowledge. We trace the project’s development to show how what started as a set of workshops to address campus climate problems grew into a major mapping effort and advocacy projects that aim to improve the campus food system. Early on, workshops found that the biggest barrier to changing our campus food system was understanding the system itself: who the individual and departmental decision makers are and how different parts of the foodscape interact. Foodscape mapping is one possible pathway for changing a campus food system. This pathway was chosen because it could create a much-needed data foundation for advocacy at UC Berkeley. We discuss the concept of mapping and work through the process of building the Campus Food Players map. Several examples of Spotlight Maps and a practical policy advocacy project are presented to show the variety of outputs. Finally, we analyze financial, personnel, and pedagogical resources needed to realize the map, along with important constraints on its development. Readers will learn about campus foodscape mapping and be better equipped to develop projects at their own campuses.

Download Full-text

Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems

Nature Food ◽

10.1038/s43016-021-00363-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (9) ◽

pp. 733-741

Author(s):

Rebecca E. Short ◽

Stefan Gelcich ◽

David C. Little ◽

Fiorenza Micheli ◽

Edward H. Allison ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Systems ◽

Small Scale ◽

The Future ◽

Aquatic Food

Download Full-text

Three-Decades of Research Integration—Transforming to Collaborative Aquatic Food Systems Research Partnerships in the Pacific

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems ◽

10.3389/fsufs.2021.757407 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Anne-Maree Schwarz ◽

Hampus Eriksson ◽

Christain Ramofafia ◽

Rosalie Masu ◽

Delvene Boso ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Academic Success ◽

Food Systems ◽

Solomon Islands ◽

National Development ◽

System Level ◽

Small Scale ◽

High Quality ◽

Widespread Application ◽

Systems Research ◽

Aquatic Food

High-quality research to provide sustainable development solutions in aquatic food systems requires a deliberate theory for its application at scale. One frequently defined pathway in theories of change for scaling research innovation is through partnerships. Yet, despite the widespread application of partnership modalities in food-systems research, only a small proportion of published research provides original and high-quality solutions for small-scale producers. Metrics of academic success can incentivize publication regardless of end-user impact. Analogously, partnerships among national and international institutions can also lack impact because of inequity and persistent power imbalances. We describe a long-term research for development partnership between a CGIAR center (WorldFish) and a national government agency (Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources; MFMR). We review the literature produced by, or about, the activities carried out in the name of the partnership over a 35-year period to build a time-line and to identify elements of research power, priorities and capacity by decade. The form and function of the collaboration through time form the basis of our analysis of the journey toward an increasingly equitable partnership: a theorized goal toward greater development outcome at scale in Solomon Islands. The partnership has been strongly influenced by changes in both institutions. The MFMR has undergone a significant increase in operational capacity since the partnership was first conceived in 1986. WorldFish has also undergone change and has navigated tensions between being locally impactful and globally relevant through periods of different research foci. With an increasingly competent and capable ministry, dimensions of power and practice have had to be re-visited to embed CGIAR research on aquatic food systems within national development trajectories. By focusing on a practice seeking more meaningful and respectful partnerships, WorldFish—as an international research partner—continues to evolve to be fit for purpose as a credible and effective research partner. We discuss this journey in the context of system-level change for aquatic food system sustainability and innovation.

Download Full-text

Food Justice and the Challenge to Neoliberalism

Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture ◽

10.1525/gfc.2014.14.2.27 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 27-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Alison Hope Alkon

Keyword(s):

Social Transformation ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food System ◽

Food Justice ◽

Local Alternatives ◽

Alternative Food Systems ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Popular Interest ◽

Voluntary Market ◽

And Gender

As popular interest in food and agriculture has grown, so have an array of social movements intent on improving the ways we grow, raise, process, sell, and consume our sustenance. While scholars tend to agree with activists’ critical assessments of the failures of the industrial, corporate, chemically intensive food system, they often wonder whether the sustainable, local alternatives that activists recommend are sufficient for broad social transformation. Two scholarly critiques of US alternative food systems revolve around issues of food justice, meaning the ways that race, class, and gender affect who can produce and consume what kinds of foods, and neoliberalism, which refers to activists’ privileging of voluntary, market-centric strategies over those that appeal to the regulatory power of the state. This paper lays out three strategies through which the work of US food justice activists can address both critiques. These include cooperative ownership, organizing labor, and pushing to outlaw risky technologies. However, rather than being at odds with the alternative foods market, each strategy makes use of it as a venue from which to draw targeted support.

Download Full-text