Semester 2, 2020, Seminar 4, Thursday 4 November
This new book analyses land and labour relationships in the global food system.
Food in a Changing Climate
Thursday November 5, 3pm – 4.30pm, Online via Zoom
Today’s responsible, ethical eater is bombarded with multiple framings of healthier bodies, food justice, animal welfare, and climate-stable futures. Many of these focus on plant-based diets. Strong counter-narratives have emerged from the livestock sector across mainstream media, blogs, social media, and public campaigns, leading The Observer to declare diet as the “latest front in the culture wars” (Anthony, 2019).
These contestations came to a head in 2019 with the publication of the report Food in the Anthropocene: EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy and sustainable food systems (Willet et al., 2019). The “digital backlash” against this report includes a popular counter-movement promoting #yes2meat. The Lancet claims this “new skeptical online community” is responsible for “intentional dissemination of misleading content” and disinformation. It argues for proactive avoidance of “manipulation and misinformation about issues of fundamental importance for human health and the planet” (Garcia, 2019).
Most pertinent to this debate is whose knowledge counts in science communication on health and climate issues? This question is central to Alana Mann’s analysis of a global food system embedded in racialized land and labour relationships in her forthcoming book, Food in a Changing Climate.
Alana Mann is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), University of Sydney, Australia, and a key researcher in the University’s Sydney Environment Institute. Her research focuses on the communicative dimensions of citizen engagement, participation, and collective action in food systems planning and governance.
Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics
Friday 17 May, 3.00pm – 5.00pm
The Forest Lodge Hotel, 117 Arundel St, Forest Lodge
Register via Sydney Environment Institute
Food politics is where the social, the technical, the cultural, the economic – and the environment – meet. But where is the democracy in our foodways? Most decisions about our food environments are left to profit-seeking companies and policy-makers who are out of touch with the lived experiences of food insecurity. In this book Alana Mann draws on her international research into social learning and movement-building to suggest how ordinary people can have voice and participate in the co-design of food environments that are fairer, tastier, and healthier. That means respecting many choices based on culture, capacity, nutritional needs, and preference in diets, and doing so within planetary boundaries that respect the non-human too.
Join us at the Forest Lodge Hotel, Glebe, from 3pm for the official launch of the Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics, a short lecture and Q & A, all followed by festivities.
Alana Mann is Chair of the Department of Media and Communications within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the engagement of citizens and non-state actors in activism and policy debates to inform the creation of just and sustainable food systems. She is a lead researcher with the Sydney Environment Institute.
Danielle Celermajer is a Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. Her research stands at the interface of theories exploring the multi-dimensional nature of injustice and the practice of human rights. She is the lead of Multispecies Justice Project, one of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences six flagship research themes.