European Consortium for Political Research

 8th General Conference
University of Glasgow
3th - 6th September 2014

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Panel on

Global Food, Global Justice

Panel Chair: Mary C. Rawlinson (Stony Brook University

Section: The Political Theory of Food & Drink Policies

Section Chairs: Emanuela Ceva (University of Pavia), Matteo Bonotti (Queen's University, Belfast)

Obesity is a well-recognized public health problem in High Income Countries. Health care interventions frequently focus on personal responsibility, while discounting the way individual agency is shaped by a culture of possibilities.  Health strategies and policies addressing obesity rarely focus on the complicity of the state and agribusiness in constraining choice or on the the strong link between obesity and lower socio-economic status. What policies in HICs would alter the culture of possibilities to promote healthy eating? How might the current infrastructures for the production, distribution, and consumption of food be reconfigured to insure a more just access to healthy food?

As demand for soda and processed food declines in HICs, global food corporations are targeting Low and Middle Income Countries as new markets.  The introduction of global food correlates with spiking rates of obesity-related diseases, the displacement and disempowerment of indigenous farmers, environmental degradation, and loss of biodiversity. Trade agreements frequently reflect the interests of agribusiness and processed food companies. What policies, strategies, and regulatory capacities are needed in LMICs to address these risks?  Given the incursions of global agribusiness, how can these communities preserve their integrity and insure justice for local farmers and other agents in the local food economy?

Submissions are invited for this panel that explore any aspect of food policy, food culture, or the production and distribution of food in relation to questions of community health and social justice. How and what humans eat determines their relation to nature and other animals, their health and sense of identity, and the rhythms and intensities of human relationships. Papers that base policy on a robust phenomenology of the social dimensions of food are particularly welcome. Food issues differentially affect women who globally shoulder the primary responsibility for feeding their families, and papers that pay attention to gender or draw on feminist political theory are also particularly welcome.

Submissions are welcome from the fields of ethics, philosophy, political theory, history of political thought, legal philosophy, cultural studies, gender studies, and anthropology, as well as food policy.

 Please submit abstracts of no more than 400 words to: [log in to unmask] no later than February 1, 2014.