Food and Sustainability
We study the politics, practice and culture of food.
About the Group
The globalization of food systems creates a wealth of conflicts and paradoxes, ethical considerations and dilemmas both in the Global South and North. We need to understand the complex patterns shaping what we eat, how we eat, who has access to what kind of food, and how food production and consumption shapes both planetary and human health.
By linking production and consumption, environment, health and economy, the participants in this group investigate the factors that impact the journey food takes from production on the farm to peoples’ tables across the world. By doing so, we unveil the shifting power relations in the food system and try to understand the drivers of change towards sustainable food systems.
Current explanations of food and nutrition security tend to focus either on our food production system or the culture of consumption. The most critical gap in the research on sustainable food systems lies in the lack of comprehensive, inter-relational knowledge along the whole food chain.
We propose that to fully grasp the politics, practices and culture of food we need to explore the entire food chain from farm to fork; globally, nationally and locally.
Research topics
- Food consumption and practices
- Food systems of provision and production networks
- The local and global impact of the industrial grain-oilseed-livestock complex
- Food cultures
- Sustainable diets