posted on behalf of the organizers: Food security, food sovereignty, & food justice: the Geographies of Food AAG 2012
Organizers: Yui Hashimoto, MA Candidate ([email protected]) Allison M. Williams, Ph.D ([email protected]) McMaster University School of Geography & Earth Sciences As climate change and resource scarcity continue to affect harvests and food prices, food-related issues will only continue to become more salient. Food security was defined at the 1996 World Food Summit as, a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The study of food security is an interdisciplinary field, having been examined by scholars in a range of disciplines including nutrition, dietetics, agronomy, and political science. With respect to health, food security is a topic of interest because of its connection to malnutrition and obesity. More recently, more inclusive concepts around food have gained popularity. Such concepts propose moving beyond food security, which has a distinct focus on the consumer, and moving towards looking at the holistic system, including producers, purveyors, and consumers. Such ideas include community food security (Hamm & Bellows, 2003), food sovereignty (La Via Campesina, 2011), and food justice (Just Food, 2011). This session seeks to include any and all of these concepts from food security to food justice. Geography has contributed to the food security literature with food desert research and GIS technology; however, it has yet to lead the conversation on food-related issues, nor has it elucidated methods to study them, despite these issues being inherently geographic. Geography has the opportunity to provide an innovative approach to the field. Various geography subfieldssuch as health, transportation, urban, political, and feministcan contribute unique methodologies to food-related research. This session has the goal of bringing together geographers, scholars, and practitioners from all subfields to discuss topics that relate to working towards food security, community food security, food sovereignty, and food justice, including, but not limited to: - innovative approaches to examining food security (e.g. community-based participatory research, participatory GIS, feminism) - municipal food policies - regional, national, international food systems - health and food security - urban vs. rural food security - innovative programs and policies contributing to food security - emergency food system/community-based food services and programs (e.g. food banks, free meal programs, school meal programs) - research to practice: food geographies impact on the community To be considered as a presenter for this session, please e-mail the organizers with the title, author information, abstract submitted to the AAG, and abstract PIN by Sunday, 25th September.
