Convenors: Paola Minoia (University of Turin) and Chiara Rabbiosi (University of Padua)

Format: hybrid

In recent years, critical geographies have increasingly questioned the relationship between food, place, and communities. New theoretical approaches, such as new materialism, posthumanism, and post-representational theories, are pushing the boundaries of food discourses. These perspectives call for novel tools to investigate socio-ecological relationships beyond the traditional "wordy world" of food systems and policies. Concurrently, decolonial approaches focusing on food pluriverses, Indigenous ontologies, and food knowledge are challenging capitalist and colonial pressures on food systems driven by extractivist and homogenizing globalization.

Drawing from post-development and decolonial perspectives, this panel session aims to explore dynamic "foodscapes" as spaces of friction, resistance, and justice through transformative and creative methodologies. We invite contributions that present case studies reflecting methodological advancements in creative, Indigenous, participatory visual methods, storytelling, and community mapping. These approaches can uncover diverse experiences and relationships within food systems where care and conviviality are core values.

We are particularly interested in case studies that investigate how communities navigate and resist capitalist-colonial pressures. We encourage submissions that highlight a multitude of voices, imaginations, and perspectives through creative methods, illuminating the entanglements between food and communities in the pursuit of food justice. These studies may illustrate various interactions between different social groups, human and more-than-human agents, and cultural, ecological, and political dynamics at different scales to create alternative networks.

Potential topics for case studies may span various levels of the food cycle, including but not limited to:

• Land-rootedness and agroecology

• Social and environmental care in food production

• Harvesting and conservation practices

• Fermentation and traditional food processing

Read more ...

Our colleague Ph.D. student Ginevra Montefusco, who is carrying out outstanding research on Mediterranean cities and food (between Naples and Tangier), will hold a seminar on gendering food geographies, in conversation with Prof. Chiara Rabbiosi and her students within the course unit "Space, Place and Mobility". The seminar will take place on the 16th October 2024, at 2.30 pm in Aula AIS2, Palazzo del Capitanio, Padova. 

Ginevra is a passionate researcher who has worked on definitions and experiences of the "margin" in the city of Turin, on women-led urban agroecological food systems in the project "Gaza Foodways", and is now focusing on food and spatial injustice, Mediterranean cities, urban food sovereignty and agroecology, visual and participatory methods, decolonial and feminist approaches.

Prof. Anna Mdee (University of Leeds) will hold a lecture titled "Doing Fieldwork in Tanzania: Issues at Stake" at the University of Padua on the 23rd September 2024. 

Prof. Mdee is an anthropologist interested in aid and development as a political and cultural practice. Her research tends to take a critical reflective practice approach in particular on how to manage natural resources (primarily water), and how to reduce vulnerability through improved livelihoods. She has mainly conducted research in Tanzania.

The lecture will take place at MobiLab2, Palazzo Wollemborg, in Via del Santo, 26 - Padova, at 4.30 p.m. 

Our team will be holding a panel in this year's SeSaMO's Conference in Cagliari (3 - 5 October 2024). In our panel, we will be exploring, along with panelists Prof. Gabriele Proglio and Ms. Fidaa Abuhamidiya, multi-sited research. By bringing our own research experiences in dialogue with theirs, we aim to discuss how practicing multi-sited research can support critical and decolonial perspectives on methodology, epistemology, fieldwork and definitions of "areas" and geographies of the Mediterranean.  

The full program is available at the following link: https://www.sesamoitalia.it/xvi-convegno-sesamo/ 

FoCE's team participated in the Vth edition of the annual conference organized by the Società di Studi Geografici. This year the main focus was on heritage-making processes: how to understand them, what they can create, and which are the transformations they produce. 

The team participated with two presentations. In the first one (during the panel on "Food and heritage making processes") the group presented the research project of FoCE. This presentation offered the occasion for the research team to reflect together on how the heritage-making processes participate in fashioning the different study cases: it was an important moment where some common lines were drawn and where FoCe's project was communicated to the Italian geographical community. 

The second presentation was a proposal composed jointly by the two researchers of the team working in Morocco: Ginevra and Beatrice. The panel was "Sea and heritage making" and they were reflecting on how the heritage-making processes impact their fields and change the relationship with the environment, its meanings, and the practices of the people they are working with. It was the first time that two study cases of the project offered the opportunity to create a common reflection: we will continue to develop occasions where this is possible since it has been a very fertile moment of reflection and sharing :)

On 27th and 28th June FoCe's team will participate at the Vth edition of "Geografia e...". This edition revolves around "Geografia e Patrimonio". The FoCE's team will participate in two panels. 

In the panel "Il cibo nei processi di patrimonializzazione e di sviluppo locale. Pratiche, narrazioni, tensioni" the team will present FoCE project within a discussion on the relation between heritage-making and local development. 

In the panel "Mare e patrimonio" Ginevra Montefusco e Beatrice Ferlaino will present their initial reflections on the research period in Morocco. They will focus on how local communities in Tangeri and Sidi Bounuar build intangible heritage on fishing practices and knowladges. 

On the 24th of May we continued with the second meeting of our workshop at the Department of Geography (University of Padua). 

Professor Alessio Surian led an interactive session on group dynamics and visual methodologies, with a special focus on photovoice. The researchers also had the opportunity to discuss these issues and their positionalities in relation to the different fieldworks and local interlocutors.

The workshop was very stimulating. It made it possible to consolidate the research team and to develop common reflections and themes. 

The team agreed on the need for further meetings on methodological issues in the future.

On the 22nd of May we kick-started a two-day workshop on Photovoice and visual methodologies at Campus Luigi Einaudy (University of Turin). 

The FOCE team and some external researchers met with Professor Elisa Bignante. She led the participants in exercises and discussions on photovoice and photo elicitation. 

The workshop was a first step in the collective exploration of one of the most important methods of the FOCE research project. It also allowed the team to network with other researchers working on similar topics.