Food Systems Equality

Sustain annual conference #sustain22
2022-12-08 14:00 - 17:00 (Europe/London) | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
The current cost of living crisis, driven by war, energy shortages and inflation, comes on top of a pre-existing poverty crisis in the UK. Before the pandemic, 22% of people were already living in poverty. Millions more Britons are expected to experience extreme hardship this year. Food aid colleagues are reporting huge surges in demand.
Accessing a healthy, sustainable diet is beyond the reach of too many.
Our (Virtual) conference will bring together a cross sector line up to discuss both short and long term policy solutions to the multiple issues in our food system.
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With high levels of pre-existing poverty and a cost of living crisis driven by war, inflation, rising food prices and political uncertainty, our conference will provide an opportunity to discuss policy solutions.
What are the roles for politicians and government, but also civil society, retailers and the private sector to support people through what is set to be a very difficult winter? And what are the foundations we want to lay now that give us a solid base to build on for the future? We will welcome a cross-sector line up of speakers to explore these questions in detail.
Come and join us to surface your policy solutions. We hope to see you there!
Speakers include:

Professor Ha-Joon Chang, Economist and author of ‘Edible Economics- A Hungry Economist Explains the World’
Sheila Dillon, food journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme
Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge and Shadow Minister for Food and Farming
Jo Gideon, Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central and Chair of the APPG on the National Food Strategy
Munira Wilson, Lib Dem MP for Twickenham and Lib Dem spokesperson for Education
Pete Wishart, SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire and SNP spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Shefalee Loth, Senior Researcher and Writer – Nutrition and Food, Which?
Shaun Spiers, Executive Director, Green Alliance
Kat Jenner, Director, Obesity Health Alliance
Sabine Goodwin, Coordinator, Independent Food Aid Network
Pete Ritchie, Nourish Scotland

Sustain: Sustain The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.

Community-led Food Lives Walking Tour
2022-11-19 10:00 - 13:30 | Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, 277 Bancroft Road, London, E1 4DQ, United Kingdom
You might know about the Battle of Cable Street but did you know that Cable Street Studios used to be the site of one of the largest confectionery and jam factories, Batgers and Co in the early 20th Century? Have you heard of the Somali run Café Club Rio that used to be on Ensign Street in the 1950s and 1960s? Come join us for a walk around Shadwell’s forgotten cafes, factories and soup kitchens and the lively Watney Market of today. We’ll explore the rich social, cultural and economic history of food and food production.
Facilitated by researchers from the University of Sussex and the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN), you’ll visit some intriguing places and discover unusual multicultural food stories.
Accessibility and practical information
• The tour last about 2.5 hours and lunch for one.
• The tour will take us mostly along pavements and is therefore suitable for anybody using a mobility scooter or wheelchair.
• There will be the opportunity to use a bathroom along the way and during lunch.
• Wear comfortable shoes and clothing appropriate for the November weather – including an umbrella, in case it rains.
• It’s always best to bring a bottle of water with you.

LIMITED TICKETS AVAILABLE
Click Here to Register
Food Lives project is part of a larger, UKRI-funded, research programme called Food Systems Equality (FoodSEqual) which aims to improve the UK food system and is led by the University of Reading.

The Racialised, Classed and Gendered Politics of Food Pedagogies
2022-11-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
This is a virtual event.
6pm – Dr. Elaine Swan
Paper title: What makes a food pedagogy pedagogical? Mediation, Nutritionism, Whiteness and Visuality
In this paper, I take up the argument that what makes pedagogical processes pedagogical has been ‘blackboxed’ (Watkins at al., 2019) by discussing research I am undertaking in collaboration with community researchers from the Women’s Environment Movement. Funded by the UKRI, this research forms part of the Transforming Food Systems project. Since the early use of the term of food pedagogy by Jennifer Sumner, researchers deploy the analytic lens of food pedagogies to analyse how cultural and social processes and relations inside and outside of institutionalised education attempt to shape the feelings, thoughts, practices, embodiments, subjectivities and imaginings of children and adults in relation to food. Studies focus on how learning about, or through food works across a range of power relations, scales, media and domains (see for instance, Flowers and Swan, 2015; Leahy and Pike, 2015; Rich and Evans, 2016; Lalli, 2021; Jones, 2019). A particular focus is how forms of food subjectivity and food conduct are ‘capacitated, regulated and shaped’ (Watkins, Noble and Driscoll, 2015); with a few researchers examining how these produced gendered, racialised, heteronormative and classed inequalities across public, private and domestic spheres (Luke, 1996; Jones, 2019; Flowers and Swan, 2015).
But theorising on food pedagogy does not always make clear what makes a space, practice or process ‘pedagogical’ (see Sandlin, O’Malley and Burdick 2011 and Watkins et al., 2019 for discussion on this related to public and cultural pedagogies). Thus, as Gurpinder Lalli and I write in our call for papers (2021), we need to ask what are the specificities of what makes food, and food education ‘pedagogical’ and with what racialised, classed, and gendered effects (Flowers and Swan, 2015)? How do the various sites, spaces, processes and products cast as food pedagogy ‘actually operate as pedagogy’ (Sandlin et al., 2011: 359)? What are the pedagogical processes: ‘the mechanisms and interactions that enable an individual’s capacity to learn’ through food practices, media, and technologies (Burdick & Sandlin 2013: 143)? As Megan Watkins et al. (2019) question: what are the particular social and cultural effects which are seen to constitute classed, gendered and racialised subjects? How are forms of conduct are acquired through particular relations and practices across a range of settings?
Rather than assuming food pedagogies are ‘forces’ which ‘shape’ our identities, what we think and feel, and how we act, we need to research how processes ‘operate’ on us: examining what of us is ‘shaped’, and what ideal endpoint we are ‘shaped’ into. Using pedagogy as an analytical lens means examining the pedagogical dimensions of processes found in social theory such socialisation, reproduction, interpellation, embodiment and mediation (Watkins et al., 2015). Thus, more focus should be given to theorising what the ‘catalytic stuff’ of food pedagogies is and how it ‘works upon us’ (Swan 2007, 2008). Hence in this paper, taking up Noyan Jones’ (2019) point that food pedagogies based on hegemonic nutrition and healthism perpetuate racialised ideologies about food and health. More specifically, using visual images, I explore how we might understand mediation as a pedagogical process which reproduces whiteness, gender and class.
7pm – Dr. Tammara Soma
Paper title: Gifting, ridding and the “everyday mundane”: the role of class, gender, and privilege in the pedagogy of household food waste management, prevention and reduction in Indonesia
Overview: Through the lenses of food justice, this talk will demonstrate the importance of considering household food waste practices and pedagogy within the framework of unequal power dynamics (class, gender, and privilege) in a household unit in Indonesia– especially between employers and their domestic helpers, as well as between upper-class individuals and lower-class members. Informed by the “food waste regime” conceptual framework, this talk will examine the complex food provisioning practices of Indonesian households. This study draws upon 21 in-depth interviews with households of varying incomes, multiple site visits, participant observation, and going along on grocery trips to better understand the power dynamics and practices that result in, or prevent the generation of household food waste. In addition, 12 key informant interviews with government officials, traditional food vendors, supermarket managers, and a waste collector was also conducted. In an Indonesian context, understanding the interclass and gendered dynamics of the household (namely, who gets to define what is “food” and what is “waste”), and understanding how diverse types of pedagogy play a role in food waste prevention/reduction can help promote solutions that are socially and environmentally just.
Keynote speaker biographies:
Dr. Elaine Swan is a Reader in Feminist Food Studies based at Sussex University Business School. She is currently co-PI on the UKRI Transforming Food Systems project and researches food lives in Tower Hamlets, London in collaboration with community researchers from the Women’s Environmental Network. She has been writing about race, gender and food pedagogy in the UK and Australia for over ten years and is currently co-editing a special issue on foodwork for the journal Gender, Work and Organization.
Dr. Tammara Soma MCIP RPP is an Assistant Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management (Planning program) at Simon Fraser University and Research Director of the Food Systems Lab. Originally hailing from Indonesia, she conducts research on issues pertaining to food loss and waste (FLW), food system planning, food security, food literacy, and the circular food economy. Dr. Soma is a Co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Food Waste, and co-founder of the International Food Loss and Food Waste Studies group, a global network of food loss and waste researchers and practitioners. Dr. Soma was selected as a committee member of the US National Academies of Sciences and co-authored the consensus study A National Strategy to Reduce Consumer Food Waste. She leads numerous tri-council funded research projects and is routinely featured in international and local media (BBC, CBC, TVO, CTV, Huffington Post, National Observer, Chatelaine and more). In 2021, the Food Systems Lab was recognized as one out of the four women-run projects that are redefining agriculture by the Canadian Organic Grower. She was also named in Chatelaine magazine as one of the 10 inspiring Canadian women saving the environment and a Style Canada 30 Changemakers. She is a registered professional planner and a proud mother of three earthlings.
Food pedagogies
Current studies of food pedagogies across different spheres and sites contribute to our understanding of food curricula and processes, moralities, politics and social hierarchies of difference, but there is still much work to be done and which this workshop invites. The focus on food studies pedagogy provides a forum to explore the specificities of what makes food, and food education ‘pedagogical’, a topic somewhat under-developed to date. How are the processes of formal and informal ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ designed and performed specifically across different social spaces, relations and practices in relation to food? Secondly, the relationship between the ‘pedagogical state’, its programmes, food citizenship and expectations for schooling and teachers can be deepened through attention to the materialities of food, embodiments and the senses. Thirdly, much research on adult food pedagogies focuses on middle-class foodies but neglects the education and training of food pedagogy related semi-professions such as nurses, mid-wives, fitness experts and dieticians. Fourthly, the ongoing global pandemic has intensified questions about food work and food inequalities but the politics of food pedagogies related to Covid-19 have yet to be explored, especially in relation to the hostile environment and food poverty.
Food pedagogies have been defined as attempts by a range of agencies, actors, institutions and media to ‘teach’ about growing, shopping for, cooking, eating and wasting food.
About the project
This project has been funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and will lead to a call for papers for a special issue in the Food, Culture and Society journal, which brings key sociological debates of food pedagogies to the surface.

Make sure to register HERE:

Food Lives Workshop!
2022-11-05 11:00 - 16:00 | Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, 277 Bancroft Road, London, E1 4DQ, United Kingdom
In-person workshop exploring food histories in Tower Hamlets
Join us for a participatory, in-person workshop at Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives exploring the ways in which food plays a part in the lives of Tower Hamlets residents today.
Hosted by researchers from the University of Sussex and the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN), we’ll use food diaries, stories and photographs to discuss how we ‘feed the hamlets’ today, and to hear your own reflections, aspirations and food memories.
Workshop will include discussion sessions on food justice, food memories, contemporary food domestic productions and a free lunch!
You can also learn more about our Food Lives project, part of the URKI funded Food Systems Equality (FoodSEqual) project and have the opportunity to sign up as a participant.
The workshop will take place at the Archives and you’ll be able to participate in a range of discussions and activities throughout the day:

11am – 12.45pm: Exploring everyday food preparation and consumption in Tower Hamlets
What do local people think about what they eat and cook? What are their challenges and hopes around food? Hear about the latest studies with Dr Elaine Swan (University of Sussex)
1pm -2pm: Free lunch
A chance to look at our food photography exhibition and read some residents’ food diaries.
2pm – 3pm: Food Justice
A participatory workshop focussed on food systems, environmental problems, and aspirations. Facilitated by Shazna Hussain, Sajna Miah , Community Researcher from WEN (Women’s Environmental Movement) and Dr Elaine Swan
3pm – 4pm: Food Lives project
Exploring your food memories and ideas. Facilitated by Sajna Miah, Shazna Hussain and Dr Elaine Swan
Click Here to Register
This event and the Food Lives project is part of a larger, UKRI-funded, research programme called Food Systems Equality (FoodSEqual), which aims to improve the UK food system and is led by the University of Reading.

Seeing the translocal: Visual food methods and gendered cultural reproduction foodwork
2022-10-19 12:30 - 14:00 | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
A Food Researchers in Edinburgh (FRiED) Seminar.
Our speaker will be Dr Elaine Swan, Reader in Feminist Food Studies at the University of Sussex. One of Elaine’s main research interests is critical race and feminist food studies, and in this event she will be talking about work that is part of the ongoing UKRI funded Food Systems Equality (FoodSEqual) project. More about her work can be found here.
Abstract
In this talk, I draw on our qualitative study on the gendered, class and racialised foodwork of women in Tower Hamlets, London. This study forms part of the UKRI-funded FoodSEqual project and involves collaborations between Katerina Psarikidou from Sussex University and Shazna Hussain, and Sajna Miah community researchers from the Women’s Environmental network (WEN). Our study comprises a range of methods, many of which include photography or film. Hence, we carried out a series of photography workshops; an exhibition; shop-alongs; cook-alongs; food photo diaries and interviews with local residents. Analysing the mediated visual representations of foodwork, we examine the diverse meanings of ‘local food’ within translocal communities, particularly focusing on ideas of gendered racialisation and the whiteness of food localism. Academics and activists food call for ‘alternatives’ to the industrial food system, paying attention to the ‘local’ as the ‘alternative’ to address the ‘socio-environmental’ deficits of globalised food systems. In many cases, the ‘local’ as some scholars critique, takes a narrow, situated, place-based approach, described as ‘defensive’ or ‘nativist’ localism (du Puis and Goodman, 2005).
Extending this critique, Jilimiz Valiente-Neigbours (2012) argues that these limited understandings of food localism, and scholarly discussions of these, neglect race. As a result, food localism can exclude ‘translocal subjectivities’ and ‘translocal communities’ such as the American Filipinos she studies. To expand understandings of ‘local-ness’, and build an inclusive food politics, in her view, requires an embodied, sensory and mobile understanding of ‘local-ness’ and transnationalism. In our paper, we build on Valiente-Neighbours’ argument but extend it by foregrounding gender and race, and mobilising growing feminist research on the politics of localism and the visual representation of cultural reproduction through food (for instance, Deutsch, 2011; Mares, 2017).
Based on our visual analysis, we examine the diverse meanings of ‘local food’ within translocal communities, particularly focusing on ideas of gendered racialisation and the whiteness of food localism. We explore how dominant notions of localism neglect and potentially stigmatise gendered food practices of racially minoritised groups. In so doing, first, we challenge dominant ideas of ‘the local’ through an embodied, mobile, gendered and racialised understanding of ‘local-ness’ taking into account complex geographies of mobilities of people and food. Secondly, we raise questions about whether ‘access to local food’ (narrowly perceived) should be at the centre of addressing food inequalities in a racialised translocal context.
To join follow the link below and please note that the session will begin at 12.30pm with a Q&A about research methods hosted by the FRIED student network and Elaine’s talk will begin at 1pm.
Click here to join the meeting.
Meeting ID: 334 618 591 319
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Join on the web.

Mapping the Food Supply Chain for Disadvantaged Communities in the UK
2022-10-12 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
Despite many efforts by the government and citizens of the United Kingdom to address food insecurity and poverty, available data on diet-related health, food quality, affordability and accessibility indicate the situation to be worsening. The effects of recent events such as the country’s final exit from the European Union, the COVID19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have further accentuated this.
Emmanuel will discuss the role logistics and supply chain management could play in addressing this challenge by presenting a map of the food supply chain that serves disadvantaged consumers to identify the infrastructure, processes, key challenges and supply chain solutions.
Speaker Bio
Dr Emmanuel Sawyerr has expertise in supply chain resilience, procurement, supply chain excellence in developing countries, sustainable supply chain management and food supply chains. He obtained his PhD at the Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, London. He has lectured at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels on subjects such as Sustainable Global Growth, Sustainable Business, Operations and Digital Business, Project Management among others. Presently, Emmanuel works as a Research Fellow in the Centre for Logistics, Procurement and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield University’s School of Management where he is providing supply chain expertise on the BBSRC-funded Food Systems Equality project.

Food Plymouth Autumn Get-Together
2022-10-11 08:00 - 17:00 | The Climate Hub, 67 New George Street, Plymouth, PL1 1RJ, United Kingdom
A hybrid face-to-face + virtual get-together for the Food Plymouth network and anyone interested and working on food issues across the city!

It has been far too long since we’ve been able to get together in person, so don’t miss this chance! Hosted at the Community Climate Centre, this hybrid event is open to everyone within the Food Plymouth partnership and network and to anyone involved or interested in the future of healthy, affordable and sustainable food in Plymouth. If you can’t join in person, you can still take part online via Zoom.
So what’s on the agenda?

Reconnecting as a network and sharing a cuppa for those who can make it in person
Sharing food news, opportunities and challenges from across the network – what’s going on with you?
Learning about what’s been happening and what’s coming up with Sustainable Food Places campaign activities
Exploring ideas and developing plans for an exciting opportunity to have a physical presence in the city centre over the next two months!

We very much look forward to seeing you there – and please do share this opportunity with others you know too! Email Sophie at sfp@foodplymouth.org with any questions or suggestions ahead of time.

Feeding the Hamlets: Exploring the History of Food Production in the Borough
2022-08-05 10:00 - 2023-02-04 17:00 | Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, 277 Bancroft Road, London, E1 4DQ, United Kingdom
This exhibition uses the unique collections of Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives as a lens through which to explore the borough’s history of producing food.
For centuries, the East End’s landscape and social and economic history have been influenced by the growing, trading or manufacturing of food. Before 1800 farmland and market gardens characterised the area, but rapid industrialisation saw this pastoral tradition give way to the factories and warehouses producing food for mass consumption nationwide and globally. Close proximity to the docks ensured that food businesses based in the East End had ready access to a fresh supply of raw ingredients, within many supplies imported from countries colonised by Britain.
Photographs, deeds, plans, minutes, illustrations and maps are among the many unique items selected by staff. These sources illustrate fascinating and lesser-known tales from the history of food production in the East End – from flour milling and sugar refining to cow-keeping and vegetable growing.
The exhibition looks at the methods and sites where food production took place, as well as the people who were involved. A programme of free events is taking place to explore the exhibition’s themes in more detail.
Feeding the Hamlets will run until early 2023. If you would like to bring a group or class for a tour or workshop inspired by the display, please get in touch at localhistory@towerhamlets.gov.uk
For Opening times and dates, click here

Tower Hamlets: Exhibition Launch Event
2022-06-01 08:00 - 17:00 | United Kingdom (UK)
On 1st June, we’ll be holding an event on the St George’s estate to showcase some of the photos by Tower Hamlets residents created during the food photography course. The launch event will also include:
– Delicious free food cooked by local chefs
– Lots of activities and fun for little ones and teens – with prizes!
– Activities for adults too
– Plenty of chances to help us learn about food by getting involved with our research
– Information about local food histories
– The chance to learn about lovely local walks
Come back to this page soon for more detailed information about the event, including details of how to get involved with the research.
Contact E.Swan@sussex.ac.uk to find out more.
Dr Elaine Swan is a Senior Researcher at University of Sussex. She tweets at @DrElaineSwan1 and is a contributor to Servings: Critical Race Feminist Studies of Food Work and Food Pedagogies.
You can find out more about the FoodSEqual programme on Twitter at @foodsequal
Find out more about Tower Hamlets Food Partnership

RGS-IBG Conference: Good work for good food
2021-08-31 - 2021-09-03 | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
Session conveners: Hannah Pitt Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University; Ana Moragues Faus, University of Barcelona; Susanna Klassen, University of British Columbia; Poppy Nicol Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University.
Sponsored by the Geographies of Justice Research Group.
The 2020 pandemic brought public attention to the vital work of food producers and others who keep supplies available and moving. Recognition of these roles as ‘key workers’ came in stark contrast to how hidden food work typically remains. Even more ethically motivated consumers have neglected work conditions supplying their food (Gray 2013). Popular narratives dismiss food production jobs as unskilled (Klocker et al 2020), and they typically earn low social and financial value. Terms for some workers represent modern slavery (Howard and Forin 2019); during the Covid crisis some have been pressured to work in unsafe conditions. Even producers meeting ecologically sustainable standards struggle to fairly reward labourers (Wieler et al 2016). Many minority world countries struggle to balance reliance on migrant food workers with a desire to limit immigration (Rye and Scott 2018). Labour-related inequities disproportionately impact people of colour; racism and colonialist legacies limit access to becoming a food producer (Levkoe & Offeh-Gyimah 2020). Technological solutions to labour shortages may well exacerbate injustices within food systems (Rotz et al 2019). More promising might be workers’ collective action, particularly when connected to consumer campaigns (Minkoff Zern 2014). These tensions suggest unresolved questions regarding how to achieve just, sustainable food systems in which jobs producing, processing and distributing food are dignified and fairly rewarded. This session will explore good work for good food: How have bad food jobs become so prevalent? Who will do food work in future? How will they gain necessary skills and knowledge? And how can all food workers be guaranteed fair conditions and rewards?
We welcome contributions considering all dimensions of Good Food Work: labour migration; education and training; standards and certification; dismantling racism and colonialist legacies; economics of fair pay; social recognition of food work; action for change; doing research with food workers and activists. We intend to run two sessions: a typical papers session followed by a round table to enable discussion between presenters and others.

BSA Food Study Group Virtual Conference 2021: Food, Food Systems and Times of Insecurity
2018-05-29 08:00 - 17:00 | Virtual event, United Kingdom (UK)
Elaine Swan, Izabela Delabre, Katerina Psarikidou, Ruth Segal, Divya Sharma
Title The third shift: the racialised, gendered, and classed labours of community Covid foodwork.
In this article, we discuss how the racialised, gendered and class labours of ’community Covid-19 foodwork’ have been celebrated and invisibilised. Various commentators lauded the community groups which provided food emergency aid during and between the lockdowns in the UK. At the same time, they have marginalised the labours undertaken by minoritised and precaritised women who enable food mutual aid. ‘Foodwork’ builds on Marjorie Devault’s (1991) ground-breaking conceptualisation of feeding work, referring to the multifaceted, time-intensive, relentless nature of women’s domestic food labour and entailing embodied, emotional, cognitive and physical work. We examine Covid related food aid through the concept of community foodwork to highlight the labours involved in food provisioning. For instance, groups undertook soup runs, provided hot meal services, ran community kitchens, led online cooking classes and distributed meals and groceries. Labour included shopping, cooking, packing, delivering food and groceries, stock taking, fundraising, networking, knowledge sharing, driving, emotional labour and carework. Community foodwork builds solidarity and supports socially just responses to the pandemic, bringing positive and negative effects for women involved and representing for many, their ‘third shift’ of labour (Moser, 1993; Gerstel, 2000; Som Castellano, 2016, Springer, 2020). The feminist concept of ‘third shift’ refers to the extra physical and emotional labour that women do in unpaid social and volunteering roles, alongside their first shift in their paid employment and their second shift performing unpaid domestic labour. We explore how community Covid foodwork deepens gendered, racialised and classed inequalities through the uneven distribution and relations of depletion i.e. the exhaustion of material and somatic capacities and resources (Rai et al., 2013; Perrier and Swan, work in progress). Many volunteers were key workers on precarious contracts with health conditions, exposed to risks, and beneficiaries of food aid themselves. As Sara Ahmed writes, having the energy and relations which re-store relate to racial and classed privilege (Ahmed, 2013).
