Feminist agroecology: analyzing power relationships in food systems

Espinal, Diana Lilia Trevilla; Pinto, Lorena Soto; Morales, Helda; Lugo, Erin I. J. Estrada

doi:10.1080/21683565.2021.1888842

Cited by 40 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…In addition to ensuring that diverse economic opportunities are equitably distributed, there is a need to diversify the distribution of labor in households and communities, particularly care work and unpaid labor which is historically (and continuously) feminized and all too often made invisible [44]. This is a key point in the marriage and synergy between feminism and agroecology as a whole; as Lopes and Jomalinis [8] (p. 8) write, "agroecology can be an instrument for empowering women, as long as women's work is recognized and valued."…”

Section: Strengthen Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Feminist Agroecology

et al. 2021

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Agroecology is gaining ground as a movement, science, and set of practices designed to advance a food systems transformation which subverts the patterns of farmer exploitation currently entrenched in dominant agricultural models. In order for agroecology to achieve its espoused twin aims of social and ecological wellbeing, women and other historically marginalized stakeholders must be empowered and centered as the movement’s protagonists. The importance of gender and social considerations is not limited to patently social aspects of the agroecological agenda, but bears relevance in every dimension of agroecology. Yet, issues related to gender have commanded relatively little attention in the agroeocological literature. In this paper, we review HLPE’s 13 defining principles of agroecology through a feminist lens to demonstrate the ways in which human dimensions and power dynamics are interwoven in every principle. Through this analysis, we demonstrate that a feminist approach is instrumental to establish a socially just and ecologically sustainable agroecological transition.

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Section: Strengthen Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Feminist Agroecology

et al. 2021

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“…Within the first few months of her work with the PCFA, Teresa noticed public care work being performed mostly by women activists. The prevalence of women in urban agriculture contexts has been observed in prior research (Allen & Sachs, 2007;Martin, 2019;Trauger et al, 2017), despite the fact that women continue to be marginalized in farming more generally (Collins, 2018;Trevilla-Espinal et al, 2021;Portman, 2018;Shisler & Sbicca, 2019). We suggest here that the chronic failure of neoliberal capitalism to bring chemical-free, fresh, and healthy foods to low-income neighborhoods (Agyeman & McEntee, 2014) has resulted in the interpellation of a new, public form of food procurement that relies largely on gendered subjects to perform the majority of its unpaid work.…”

Section: Care For Othersmentioning

confidence: 80%

Food activism and negotiating the gendered dynamics of public cultures of care

Lloro

González²

2022

CanFoodStudies

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A growing and significant research literature utilizes feminist frameworks to study relationships with food from a variety of vantage points. In this article, we are especially interested in feminist food sovereignty, feminist political ecology, and feminist theories of care, both because caring labor has been historically undervalued in food systems and because neoliberal modes of commodification and marketization have interpellated activists, scholar-activists, and activist-scholars into new ways of self-care and caring for others. To begin, we provide a brief overview of the places where we work, including the city of Pomona, the Pomona Valley Certified Farmers Market, and the Pomona Community Farmer Alliance (PCFA), a community organization and local activist collective. We then draw on nearly three years of participatory ethnographic work in this community to explore and theorize care work in local food systems activism. Our conceptual framework, framed by feminist food studies and theories of care, illuminates how PCFA members conceive of their own caring work in practice, as well as how they negotiate the complexities of caring for others and self, while being left by the state to do this work. We also explore how activists’ care practices sometimes lay bare structural inequalities and the failure of the state, while also reinforcing and challenging neoliberal ideologies embedded in volunteerism. To conclude, we discuss the gendered implications of our work for food systems research, specifically considering the complementarity of Progressive and Radical approaches to food systems transformation.

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“…These topics were key for engagement with socially constructivist pedagogical methods for case-level experiential agroecology education. To build on this work, we can respond to the call from Trevilla-Espinal et al (2021) to further integrate feminist theory into agroecology education and practice. Morales (2021) summarizes this call by stating that feminist agroecologists "must cultivate what we promote in the field, to nurture polycultures, mutualisms, knowledge dialogues, social organization, and horizontal learning in our own minds and institutions" (p. 956).…”

Section: Uarfp Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Undergraduate Agroecology Research Fellows Program Engages Co-learning Through Participatory Action Research

Nordstrom

Horner

Méndez

et al. 2022

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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This paper addresses the role of an Undergraduate Agroecology Research Fellows Program (UARFP) toward a more critical and equity-oriented agroecology pedagogy. As a model rooted in action, Undergraduate Agroecology Research Fellows (UARF) become members of the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC) Community of Practice (CoP), at the University of Vermont; a transdisciplinary research and education group that engages in community-based participatory action research (PAR). Through this model, UARFs support undergraduate student engagement in an advanced agroecology course, through which a PAR process centered on soil health takes place with regional farms. This triangulated learning format involves in-class and on-farm lab work, alongside the embedded UARF enrichment program, through which agroecological principles are examined via inter- and transdisciplinary educational lenses. Within this context, the objectives of the pedagogical research presented in this paper were: 1) To analyze the ALC-UARFP perceptions of transdisciplinary co-learning through PAR, and 2) extract key lessons learned for critical pedagogy, through this model in action. Our methodological results illustrate the strength of participatory inquiry to capture stakeholder perspectives, iteratively informing the program's direction, and providing key lessons learned. Parallel to this evaluative strength, the qualitative results suggest that authentic undergraduate engagement in PAR offers great potential for the development of increasingly transformative educational programs. Further, our UARFP model, grounded in reciprocal and transdisciplinary co-learning within an agroecological community of practice, pushes the praxis needle toward a more comprehensive and critical agroecology pedagogy.

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Feminist agroecology: analyzing power relationships in food systems

Cited by 40 publications

References 33 publications

Toward a Feminist Agroecology

Toward a Feminist Agroecology

Food activism and negotiating the gendered dynamics of public cultures of care

An Undergraduate Agroecology Research Fellows Program Engages Co-learning Through Participatory Action Research

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