Call for Presentations: Food Sovereignty, Food Rights, the Food Crisis and the Feminization of Poverty

Posted by on November 24, 2008

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Food Sovereignty, Food Rights, the Food Crisis and the Feminization of Poverty

Civil society organizations around the world have embraced food sovereignty as a goal for improving farmers’ livelihoods, accessing food reliably, increasing the environmental sustainability of farming systems, and reforming agricultural trade.  While different organizations use the term in somewhat different ways, there are common themes of self-determination (by a region, nation, community or sub-population) and serving the public good rather than private interests through food systems.  Despite the popularity of
food sovereignty as a rallying cry for farmer organizations and others, very little academic attention has gone into understanding it as a powerful mobilizing concept or as a social movement.  The most prominent exceptions are work of Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén for Foodfirst Information and Action Network
(FIAN-International), and Michel Pimbert and others at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).  However, many aspects of food sovereignty remain unexplored.

Molly Anderson and Anne Bellows would like to organize a panel at the next 2009 combined Annual
Conference of the Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society and the American Food Studies Association in State College, Pennsylvania, May 28-31. Presentations that address connections among food
sovereignty / the right to food / communities’ ability to cope with sharp volatility in food and crop prices, or food sovereignty’s capacity to overcome negative impacts for women of gendered relations in food systems, are especially welcome.   However, presentations dealing with other aspects of food sovereignty will be considered as well.  Please submit abstracts to both Molly Anderson ([email protected]) and Anne Bellows ([email protected]) by December 31, 2008.  We will notify each person who submits an abstract by January 23, 2009, whether a presentation at the conference will be invited.  This will allow any whose abstracts are not accepted for the panel to submit to the AFHVS/ASFS conference organizers before the deadline.  Completed manuscripts will be due to the guest editors by May 8, 2009, to allow sharing among participants in the conference panel.

Please note that Molly Anderson and Anne Bellows also will be guest editing a mini-symposium in Agriculture and Human Values on the same topics. If you do not see the Call for Papers for the
mini-symposium in the journal and would like to submit a manuscript, please contact Molly Anderson.  The deadline for manuscript submission for the mini-symposium is March 2, 2009; and all submissions will be peer-reviewed.