The global pandemic, occurring amid the ongoing climate crisis, foregrounds the urgency of re-imagining the local, national, regional, and global organizing of food systems. Food system impacts are widespread, including myriad environmental and health effects of industrialized supply chains, the uneven distribution of food, unprotected essential food and farm workers, and the ubiquitous dispossession of land, water, and life sustaining resources. Contemporary food struggles render visible processes of expulsion from livelihoods that have long been catalyzed by colonialism, racial capitalism, and four decades of accelerated neoliberalism.

Food correlates to a number of environmental issues from land and water use to pollution from pesticides and herbicides. Food production, packaging, and waste all impact the environment. Sustainable perspectives of food may also connect with morality, ethics, and spirituality. Of course, issues of labor and culture surface as well. Individual practices and social structures all come into how we feed ourselves. 

Whether you take the perspective of a researcher, digging into interviews about food or analyzing food policies, for example, OR an artist who creates food-related sculptures or performance pieces, for example, OR a practitioner, helping local community members start gardens or cook with the veggies in their CSAs, for example, we’d love to hear what you know about how best to communicate for sustainable food. 

Special Issue Education and Socio-environmental Justice in the Pluriverse / Journal Globalizations

Editors: Paola Minoia, University of Helsinki/Università di Torino & José Castro-Sotomayor, California State University Channel Islands