Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Land tenure allows rural and urban dwellers to learn and participate in dynamic, culturally specific metabolism. Tenure enables longevity, familiarity, community. Secure and sustainable land tenure evolves from humans and more-than-humans in relationship that adapts and develops over time. We call this “living with food:” inherited systems of production, consumption, excretion, regeneration in place. Spatial stability and tenured, secure location grounds survival and beyond that, rich thriving. Tenure safeguards systems of shelter, protection, and nutrition in dynamic, adaptive systems. But tenure is constantly threatened by war, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe requiring strategies that protect against forced migration, extractive “development,” and gentrification. We have some international tools. Facing massive worldwide urbanization, the 1996 Habitat II conference endorsed land tenure for sustainable human settlements. Struggling to stem land and resource grabbing that peaked 2008-9, the newly reformed UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) created Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (2012). Recognizing that survival requires the rights of Nature, not just humans, led to the 2012 Cochabamba Declaration on Rights of Mother and most recently, the 2023 Maastricht Principles on the Rights of Future Generations. The question is, how to adapt those tools locally. Syracuse, New York, a refugee receiving USA city with thriving urban agriculture and dynamic land bank program, serves as case study. Public land tenure in urban commons bolsters tenured “living with food” in urban landscapes undergoing human and ecological change.

Presenters

Carolin Mees
Professor, School of Design Strategies and School of Constructed Environments and Art Design History of Design, School of Public Engagement/ Food Studies, Parsons School of Design / The New School University, New York, United States

Anne C. Bellows
Professor, Nutrition and Food Studies, Syracuse University, New York, United States