Thirteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Food sovereignty goes beyond access and provision of food for individuals to live, referring to the rights of peoples and nations to produce and consume healthy, safe, and culturally acceptable food, as well as the possibilities of communities to define their own food system. While peasant women’s realities and positionality within Mexican agricultural communities vary and change over time and space, practices and knowledge that allow for nutrition-sensitive agriculture run parallel to the construction of food sovereignty, and therefore to the gendered division of work and power in rural households. This collaborative research project centers on peasant households’ backyards – or traspatios – to understand the role these women-led spaces play in communities’ struggle for nutrition and food sovereignty. Mexican campesino agriculture is wealthy in terms of biocultural diversity, agroecological practices, and territorial relations. Yet, In the Mixtec Region, Oaxaca socioeconomic vulnerability interacts with diverse threats to food security, such as loss of agrobiodiversity, gender inequality, and climate variability. In this context, a close analysis of peasant women’s lived experiences with, involvement in, and contribution to local agrifood systems is crucial to expand the possibilities of ecologically and socially sustainable alternatives for agricultural production. Guided by the notion that transdisciplinarity and knowledge co-production are essential to develop and understand principles applicable to today’s most pressing social and environmental issues, this project privileges participatory action research (PAR) methods that offer a window into the interdependence of agrifood systems and their ecological, cultural, and economic elements.