Reparative Horizons for a food secure future: Call for abstracts RGS-IBG annual international conference

Posted on January 31, 2024 by geofoodie

We are requesting expressions of interest to join a paper session at the RGS-IBG sponsored by the Food Geographies Research Group.

How do we make reparative horizons visible for communities and households in food crises?

The current contexts within which people eat, survive and support each other are structured to reproduce the inequalities that produce vulnerability to food insecurity. While we cannot undo the past, we must learn to identify these structuring features and envision reparative horizons characterised by imagination, aspiration and social justice. To move between the present and the horizon requires an active mapping of the spaces in-between–or transitional spaces– that allow people to navigate toward those horizons.

To ensure that these futures are socially just, those vulnerable to food insecurity need to be included in the visioning and production of these horizons. Yet placing additional demands on those who encounter issues with food security and its associated isolations introduces further burdens in an already over-burdened and under-resourced life experience. As a result, the immediate occupies the mental and physical spaces of survival. As such, these individuals and their communities often struggle to envision their participation in a good food future. This affects both those living with and those supporting issues surrounding food security. In this session, we ask how we can envision, reveal and create those paths and maps that allow socially just visions of sustainable and food-secure futures to take shape and take place.

We invite empirical, theoretical, and conceptual papers around the following questions, although other ways of approaching the subject are also welcome.

What is the role of imagination and creativity in producing these horizons and the landscapes that lead to them?
What role do intermediate spaces play in creating transitions toward socially just food futures?
What is holding people and places back from envisioning these reparative horizons and producing the interstitial spaces between the present and these futures?
How can isolation be a barrier to envisioning food-secure futures, and how might the community be mobilised to materialise reparative horizons and the spaces between the here and now and the there and then?
How might we rethink our approach to researching in and with communities to understand and co-create these interstitial and horizon spaces and the maps that help us navigate between them?

We are hoping for 15-minute, in-person presentations with plenty of time for discussion. Please send a title, 250-word abstract and your full contact details to Megan Blake m.blake@Sheffield.ac.uk and Ollie Chesworth ochesworth1@Sheffield.ac.uk by 16 February. Please include “RGS reparative food horizons” in the subject. We will aim to inform those accepted for the session by 23rd February and will send you the link you need to submit your abstract.

AC2024 will take place in London at the Society and Imperial College London and from Tuesday, 27 to Friday, 30 August 2024.

Please note the RGS participant regulations:
“Delegates will be limited to ONE paper presentation and ONE panel/workshop contribution, OR, TWO panel/workshop contributions. The role of discussant is included as a panel/workshop contribution” https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/call-for-sessions-papers-and-posters/guidance-for-presenters

Food insecurity, property development and the sale of a supermarket chain

Posted on July 24, 2013 by geofoodie

Do you know what Orange mobile, EDF Energy, a dockworkers strike, and Hong Kong’s largest supermarket chain have in common? Continue reading →

Whither the light?

Posted on July 16, 2013 by geofoodie

The hour just after sunrise and the one again before sunset are the Golden Hours according to photography wisdom. They are golden because the light is apparently softer and the shadows are fewer… or something. These technical aspects of photography are not really my thing, I must confess. I do know that the weather can influence the colours of sunrise and sunset. I also know that while the visual effects are beautiful, the physical effects of the weather can be catastrophic for those affected by it, and often those most affected are the poor. Continue reading →

Bloom’s Taxonomy and Collective Understanding

Posted on June 20, 2013 by geofoodie

Bloom’s taxonomy is an heuristic designed to help educators develop teaching methods that will move student’s learning beyond rote memorisation. Learning beyond memorising is sometimes considered higher order or deeper learning. Since the taxonomy was developed in the mid 1950’s it has informed education policy across the globe and has inspired countless innovations in teaching and learning including Research-led Teaching and Learning, Service Learning, and more recently Knowledge Building approaches. It has also been used to help educators develop learning outcomes for Objective Based Teaching and Learning (OBTL) that are then assessed via Criterion Referenced Assessment (CRA). In this post I discuss how I sought to achieve higher order learning through a student web page project in Hong Kong and what that process revealed to me about Bloom’s taxonomy. Continue reading →

What is Cosmopolitanism?

Posted on March 23, 2013 by geofoodie

I presented sections of this work at the University of Sheffield/National University of Singapore workshop: Decentring Knowledge (10-11 September 2012). Other material is drawn from a lecture on Cosmopolitanism that I gave at Hong Kong University in 2012 to my students taking Geog3414: Cultures, Social Justice and Urban Space.

What is Cosmopolitanism?

Although not a new term, the idea of cosmopolitanism has experienced a recent revival and has gained currency in theoretical debate. Much of this revival comes from a concern with the persistence of conflicts based on preserving or expanding territorial Continue reading →

Gendered income inequality and the precariousness of street trading

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In the HK census there is an occupation category designated as street traders. The fact that there is a specific category tells us something about the state of being in Hong Kong. The census tells us that there are nearly 15.5 thousand steet traders in Hong Kong, but actually there are probably more, as a lot of the street trading is illegal and people may also do it on a part-time basis. What this info-graphic demonstrates, is that firstly street trading is a precarious business for everyone, but particularly for women.

The ratio of male street traders to female traders counted by the census is 3 to 2. The reasons for the income differential is unclear. It may be that women have locations that are less profitable. It may be that the goods that women street traders sell are less valuable so overall earnings are less. Some evidence from studies done in the 1970’s and 80’s indicate that street trading is often a family business and women work as family labour. We just don’t know as street trading is something that many at government level in Hong Kong wish would just go away. It clearly isn’t and as International Women’s day passes, it is also clear that there is further work to be done with regard to gender equity at all levels of society and all over the world.

The 2011 HK census has a new online feature where you can make your own tables. The website can be found here.