October 19-21, 2022, Leipzig, Germany

Mini-Conference of the Research Committee on Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40) of the International Sociological Association (ISA)

The agrifood-related challenges we are facing today abound. The increasing levels of hunger and poverty are accompanied by diversifying forms of insecurity and inequality in terms of access to a healthy and ecologically sustainable diet. Accelerating ecological threats like climate change and agrobiodiversity loss are accompanied by the rise of authoritative regimes and anti-democratic governance of the agrifood system. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only demonstrated once again the vulnerabilities of capitalist-industrial agrifood relations but also has significantly intensified them.

The ISA RC40 mini-conference, titled “The Food System in the (Post-)Pandemic World: Disruptions, Vulnerability, Resilience, and Alternatives” has revisited the major themes of critical agrifood studies with a specific focus on what the pandemic has revealed about them. The conference took place at the Research Center Global Dynamics at Leipzig University on October 19-21, 2022. A total of 46 participants from 37 different universities, research institutions and social movements from all over the world were hosted during the conference.

The conference started with a roundtable discussion with the representatives of alternative agrifood networks to hear the grassroots and social movements’ perspectives and experiences on the food system in the (post-)pandemic world. And it ended with a closing roundtable session, which not only reflected on the discussions held throughout the conference days but also on the possible future trajectories for the critical agrifood scholarship based on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In between, based on the 26 papers presented in the conference sessions, the participants have engaged intellectually stimulating debates on the following themes and issues: the pandemic and food (in-)security; the pandemic and migrant labor; supply chains during the pandemic; state responses to COVID-19; COVID-19 and the alternative food networks; the pandemic and the social, local and indigenous movements; and possible trajectories for transforming food systems. The conference organizers and the participants are now working on a special journal issue to share those discussions and debates with the related broader academic and non-academic communities