Global food supply chains in a world on the edge
15 – 16 June 2021
Conveners: Dr Victoria Stead, Professor Jon Altman FASSA, Associate Professor Melinda Hinkson
“Food systems are fundamental to human life, health, culture and relationships. At stake are questions of wellbeing and sustenance, but also issues of self-determination, self-realisation, and human flourishing.”
Amid its myriad impacts on human life, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global food supply chains in dramatic and far-reaching ways. Border closures have triggered critical labour shortages in harvest; outbreaks of infection have spread through abattoirs and processing facilities; panic buying has cleared supermarket shelves; the precariousness of hospitality and gig economy work has been amplified. This interdisciplinary workshop will bring together a group of internationally-situated scholars to critically interrogate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global food supply chains, including in their intersections with the wider crises of climate change, (post)coloniality, and neoliberal capitalism.
Workshop Program is available here.