This email has been sent to members of the BSA food study group/SCOFF. Please help to publicise the work of the study group by forwarding this email to other colleagues or networks who may be interested in research on the sociology of food production and consumption. If you would like us to send information about jobs, conferences, funding, research, papers and reviews of relevant meetings, reports, books/papers to members of the group then please email Rebecca O’Connell [[log in to unmask] ]. Links to relevant research can also be added to the study group website (http://www.britsoc.co.uk/specialisms/Food.htm). Please also contact Rebecca with queries relating to membership. The food study group is a specialist study group of the British Sociological Association (http://www.britsoc.co.uk/).
Food Study Group News
1. Doing Food Research: Methods Workshops
Following expressions of interest, we are reprising the popular methods workshops that we ran in 2014. The final programme and registration details will be available very soon on the Food Study Group website and announced via e-news.
Meanwhile please note that the date is now set for Monday 13 June 10.00-17.15 and the workshops will be held at the University of Westminster. We are finalising speakers at present and currently have one workshop confirmed, on Visual and Mobile Methods, which will be led by Dr Angela Meah, University of Sheffield. The other workshop will be on either Ethnographic Methods or Working for the Government and Applied Research. We are also planning a session where participants can share experiences at the end of the day.
Please send enquiries to the workshop organisers:
Alizon Draper: [log in to unmask] and
Ulla Gustafsson: [log in to unmask]
Non Food Study Group News
1. Early Career Research Fellowship in Food and Public Health Across the Life Course
University of Hertfordshire - School of Health and Social Work, Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care (CRIPACC)
Location: Hatfield
Salary: £31,656 to £37,768 per annum
Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Contract / Temporary
Placed on: 13th April 2016
Closes: 17th May 2016
Job Ref: 013455
Are you a high performing early career researcher looking to build success with the UK’s leading business-facing University?
The University is investing in its future research staff and infrastructure, and is in the process of transitioning the delivery of its research. The role will assist in the further development of research excellence and provide both increased external profile and internal focus for Hertfordshire’s research activities.
The new Research Fellow post is offered for a five year term in the first instance. It is our expectation, however, that the successful appointee will grow their research activities to become a permanent academic staff member by the end of that period.
For more information on the post, an opportunity to speak to the research lead and to discuss how the University supports researcher development, please go to the relevant Further Particulars found on the link below. You can also apply for the job by clicking onto the same link and typing in the appropriate vacancy number.
Apply online at http://www.herts.ac.uk/contact-us/jobs-and-vacancies
Informal enquiries are encouraged and should be made to Professor Wendy Wills, Director of the Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care email: [log in to unmask] or Tel: +44 (0)1707 285990.
The University offers a range of benefits including a pension scheme, professional development, family friendly policies, child care vouchers, waiving of course fees for the children of staff at UH, discounted memberships at the Hertfordshire Sports Village and generous annual leave.
Interview dates: Interviews will be organised from week commencing 13th June until 30th June 2016.
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANL009/early-career-research-fellowship-in-food-and-public-health-across-the-life-course/
2. Body Image and Eating Disorders: Future Research Priorities
Thursday 5th May 2016
Registration and refreshments from 10.30am
Event 11.00am - 2.00pm including lunch
Scottish Universities Insight Institute
Collins Building
22 Richmond Street
Glasgow G1 1XQ (map)
To register please go to:
www.engage.strath.ac.uk/event/276/
This event aims to gather a working group of experts in the field of body image and eating disorders to explore current research in the field and future research priorities. There will be a chance to discuss the most pressing questions which still need to be answered through research and how we could best work collaboratively to explore them.
The planned outcome of the event is to agree on a research agenda for the field of body image and eating disorders, which would guide future research and funding applications by scholars and industry experts alike.
Professionals from the third sector and healthcare industry working in the field of body image and eating disorders along with researchers and community advocates for eating disorder organisations.
Benefits of attending:
• Hear from academic and industry experts about the latest developments in body image and eating disorders.
• Take part in discussions to inform new collaborative research.
• Identify new approaches, ideas and areas of interest for future funding applications.
3.Future meat landscapes: new cultures growing from the lab
Neil Stephens, Clemens Driessen and Alexandra Sexton
Tuesday 26th April 2016 - 4:00pm
Committee Rooms, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University
In recent years the idea of cultured or 'in vitro' meat seems to have become more and more real. The public announcement and consumption of the first hamburger made from cells cultured in a laboratory stirred global interest, whereby for many it is unclear what to think of this category crushing new object. The promise of environmentally friendly meat without the need to kill animals (a few would merely suffer the inconvenience of a small biopsy) is broadly appealing. Imagining to actually eat it is something else, whereas contemplating how this technology would change our landscape and culture confronts us with the realities of current meat production and forces many to examine their moral experiences and political positions.
This afternoon Neil Stephens (sociology, Brunel University) and Clemens Driessen (philosophy/geography Wageningen University , the Netherlands) will interactively discuss the promises, the realities and the public responses to this idea that aims to drastically change existing meat cultures and landscapes. With commentary by Alexandra Sexton (geography, Kings College London).
Followed by drinks and an in vitro meat performance by Laura Colebrooke and Mara Miele (Cardiff University)
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/cplan/events/future-meat-landscapes
4.The 6th Annual Food Forum Conference, organized by the Oxford Food Forum and the Cambridge Food Security Forum, on "Technological Frontiers in Food Security and Sustainability".
It will take place on May 7th, 2016 in the School of Geography and the Environment in Oxford.
Registration is possible here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/technological-frontiers-in-food-security-and-sustainability-tickets-23856922698
and more information is available on our website:
http://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/food-security-forum/oxford-food-security-forum
5. Ecofeminism, Food and Social Justice Seminar with Kate Metcalf and Jane Dixon
When: Wednesday 4 May 2016, 4 pm
Where: City University London, in Room ELG02 of the Drysdale Building.
To book:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ecofeminism-food-and-social-justice-seminar-3-jane-dixon-kate-metcalf-registration-24739612848
Speakers:
Kate Metcalf
Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) is the only organisation in the UK working consistently to make the links between women’s health and well-being and environmental issues. Since forming in 1988, they have campaigned on issues overlooked in the mainstream environmental movement, bringing a gendered analysis to environmental issues but also broadening the scope of what is considered an environmental issue. This talk will highlight in particular their work on gender and climate change, as well as their current local food work with ethnic minority women in Tower Hamlets.
About the speaker: Kate Metcalf is WEN’s Local Food Project Co-ordinator, and has 16 years’ experience in delivering participatory training, developing community networks and project management. For the past six years Kate has managed WEN’s Local Food programme, including Spice it Up!, the Tower Hamlets Food Growing Network and most recently Gardens for Life. Prior to that she worked on our Gender and Climate Change campaign and supported WEN Local Groups. She also worked for ‘Reflect’ at ActionAid, using participatory methods as tools to promote adult literacy, women’s rights and social change.
Jane Dixon
Title: Implications of structure versus agency for addressing health and well-being in our ecologically constrained world: With a focus on prospects for gender equity
The long-standing debate in public health and the wider society concerning the implications of structure and agency for health and well-being generally concludes that structure powerfully influences agency, and does so unequally, exacerbating social and health inequities. In this presentation, Prof Dixon will review this debate in the context of increasing environmental degradation and resource depletion. As the global population rises and environmental resources per person shrink, conflicts over the underlying factors contributing to human health and well-being may intensify. A likely result of nearing limits is a further constraint of agency, for both rich and poor, and greater social and health inequities, including gender inequities.
About the speaker: Associate Professor Jane Dixon is Senior Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University. She will be in London as a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, based at the Centre for Food Policy. For 13 years, she has conducted research at the intersection of sociology and public health, with a focus on the cultural, social and health impacts of food system transformations. Prior to this research track she was national coordinator of the Health Inequalities Research Collaboration, helping to establish the International Society for Equity in Health. In recent applied research, she has been an advisor to the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office and is a Visiting Research Fellow with the International Institute for Global Health, United Nations University, Kuala Lumpur.
6. New books:
a) Parsons, Julie M., Gender, Class and Food, families, bodies and health (Palgrave MacMillan 2015)
Reviews:
'I am in awe of the skill with which Parsons manages to draw together her research data within theoretical frameworks relating to both gender and class beautifully using [it] to make a significant and engaging contribution to debates about neo-liberal foodways.' - Wendy Wills, University of Hertfordshire, UK
'Communal eating, through the cooking and sharing of food together, rather than merely eating to survive, is probably one the most evocative and emotionally significant human activities, and Parsons' book develops a much needed and sophisticated sociological analysis of this everyday practice.'- Gillian Bendelow, University of Brighton, UK
more details at: http://www.palgrave.com/in/book/9781137476401
B) FOOD, FAMILIES AND WORK by Rebecca O’Connell & Julia Brannen
With dual-working households now the norm, this is the first comprehensive study to explore how families negotiate everyday food practices in the context of paid employment.
As the working of hours of British parents are among the highest in Europe, the United Kingdom provides a key case study for investigating the relationship between parental employment and family food practices. Focusing on issues such as the gender division of foodwork, the impact of family income on diet, family meals, and the power children wield over the food they eat, the book offers a longitudinal view of family routines. It explores how the everyday meanings of food change as children grow older and negotiate changes in their own lives and those of their family members. Drawing on extensive quantitative data from large-scale surveys of food and diet – as well as qualitative evidence – to emphasise the larger global context of social and economic change and shifting patterns of family life, the authors present a holistic overview of food practices within busy contemporary family lives.
“This book achieves so much, so skilfully; at its heart is a robust analysis of data relating to mothers, fathers and children, drawing on quantitative and qualitative research methods and considering the complex issues of food, families and work over time. It will be of interest to a variety of scholars.”
– Wendy Wills, University of Hertfordshire, UK
9780857855084 | Mar 2016 | £19.99
REBECCA O'CONNELL is a Senior Research Officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, UK, where she currently manages a European Research Council funded study of Families and Food in Hard Times.
JULIA BRANNEN is Professor of Sociology of the Family at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, UK and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway.
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