British Academy awards networking grant for Just Food Transitions

Together with British colleagues Dr Gearoid Millar (University of Aberdeen), Dr Lidia Cabral (Institute of Development Studies), and Dr Melanie Levick-Parkin (Sheffield Hallam University), Dr Iva Pesa of the Centre for Historical Studies has received a k£ 15 networking grant from the British Academy. Their project Just Food Transitions will establish a mutual exchange network that will examine and compare conceptions of, approaches to, and strategies for, achieving the just transition of food systems in four contexts (Brazil, Zambia, Sierra Leone, and the UK).

The network will engage critical food system actors in each context in a series of participatory workshops organised by local civil society organisations (CSOs) concerned with food systems and food security, who will then share and contrast the collected data in a series of online interregional engagement meetings with a selection of international food system advocacy organisations and the interdisciplinary research team. Outcomes from the project will include academic articles, policy briefs, an online portal presenting the multimedia data collected and all published outputs, and the new interregional network itself, which will continue to grow and connect further food system actors, national and international CSOs, and scholars beyond the period of funding.

Iva Pesa will be working with the Zambia Land Alliance to establish the Zambia-node of the network. Iva will be coordinating the three community-led workshops, in which farmers will discuss their understandings of 'just food transitions'.