Politics, Power, Food
The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research approves funding for research project at the Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
№ 109/2019 from Apr 26, 2019
The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research approved funding for a project at the Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. The project will investigate how questions of inequality, justice, and democracy relate to food production, distribution, and consumption. The research will focus on food systems in Germany and Brazil and the challenges facing them. The researchers will also work on developing suggestions for solutions based on principles of fairness and sustainability. Professor Renata Campos Motta will head the Food for Justice project. She is a professor of Latin American sociology at the Institute for Latin American Studies. The support from the federal ministry is part of its funding platform for sustainable development and amounts to 2.4 million euros for the next five years.
The project brings together theories of global inequality with research on social movements surrounding food systems. The production, distribution, and consumption of food is becoming more and more politicized, scholars claim, given the prevalence of inequality in the very relationships that structure food production, from social inequality to political, cultural, and ecological inequalities as well. Renata Campos Motta states that a growing number of people see the global food system as one of the historical causes responsible for ecological crises and the persistence of world hunger. Until recently, studies on food safety and the bioeconomy have concentrated on how to advance technology and maximize profits, which is why the researchers in this project, in contrast, want to take into account normative contexts, questions of sustainability, and ideas from the general public.
Contact
Professor Renata Campos Motta, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Tel.: +49 30 838-72539, Email: renata.motta@fu-berlin.de