CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS: Food Sovereignty, Food Rights, and the Feminization of Poverty

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Food Sovereignty, Food Rights, the Food Crisis and the Feminization of
Poverty

Due: December 31, 2008

To: Molly Anderson (molly@foodsystems-integrity)
and Anne Bellows (anne.bellows@uni-hohenheim.de)

Civil society organizations around the world have
embraced food sovereignty as a goal for improving
farmers' livelihoods, accessing food reliably,
increasing the environmental sustainability of
farming systems, and reforming agricultural
trade. While different organizations use the
term in somewhat different ways, there are common
themes of self-determination (by a region,
nation, community or sub-population) and serving
the public good rather than private interests
through food systems. Despite the popularity of
food sovereignty as a rallying cry for farmer
organizations and others, very little academic
attention has gone into understanding it as a
powerful mobilizing concept or as a social
movement. The most prominent exceptions are work
of Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén for
Foodfirst Information and Action Network
(FIAN-International), and Michel Pimbert and
others at the International Institute for
Environment and Development (IIED). However,
many aspects of food sovereignty remain
unexplored.

Molly Anderson and Anne Bellows would like to
organize a panel at the next 2009 combined Annual
Conference of the Agriculture, Food & Human
Values Society and the American Food Studies
Association in State College, Pennsylvania, May
28-31.
Presentations that address connections among food
sovereignty / the right to food / communities'
ability to cope with sharp volatility in food and
crop prices, or food sovereignty's capacity to
overcome negative impacts for women of gendered
relations in food systems, are especially
welcome. However, presentations dealing with
other aspects of food sovereignty will be
considered as well. Please submit abstracts to
both Molly Anderson (molly@foodsystems-integrity)
and Anne Bellows (anne.bellows@uni-hohenheim.de

) by December 31, 2008. We will notify each person
who submits an abstract by January 23, 2009,
whether a presentation at the conference will be
invited. This will allow any whose abstracts are
not accepted for the panel to submit to the
AFHVS/ASFS conference organizers before the
deadline. Completed manuscripts will be due to
the guest editors by May 8, 2008, to allow
sharing among participants in the conference
panel.

Please note that Molly Anderson and Anne Bellows
also will be guest editing a mini-symposium in
Agriculture and Human Values on the same topics.
If you do not see the Call for Papers for the
mini-symposium in the journal and would like to
submit a manuscript, please contact Molly
Anderson. The deadline for manuscript submission
for the mini-symposium is March 2, 2009; and all
submissions will be peer-reviewed.