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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Alexandra Hughes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Academic discourse on food justice and sustainable food consumption needs to be informed by empirical contributions and heterogenous conceptualisations from diverse parts of the world. This paper broadens the dialogue with a variety of voices and knowledges, rooting itself not only in the specific political and social context, but also the discursive and epistemic traditions of Brazil, which stand in dialogue with international discourses. Firstly, an analysis is offered of the multi-stakeholder process that since the mid-1990s shaped the discourse, theorisation and policy making on food justice and sustainable food consumption in Brazil. Emerging from this process were globally leading Brazilian policy initiatives such as Zero Hunger, the School Feeding Program, the progressive Food Guide, and co-crafted concepts such as comida de verdade. The institutional architecture for this discourse, the National Food Council and regular conferences, were dismantled in 2019 after a change in government. Secondly, the paper presents data from thirty interviews with key stakeholders from civil society, policy, business, media and celebrity influencers, conducted at the time of the dissolution. Three key sub-discourses on sustainable food consumption emerge: access, with an emphasis on right to food; health; and re-conhecimento, a term we use to articulate the confluence of multiple knowledges and consciousnesses, including an insistence on the cultural role of food. Throughout the interviews, co-crafted concepts and phrases emerging from the multi-stakeholder process reverberated. The paper argues that the multi-stakeholder process resulted not just in a coherent shared discourse, concepts and policy during a period of conducive policy environment, but also in collective resilience. The invisible edifice of shared ideas and commitments around this public issue is still intact and may be reactivated in future. In times of increased political polarisation, not just in Brazil, this is an important argument for investing in such long-term multi-stakeholder dialogue processes.
Author(s): Afonso R, Sarayed-Din L, Kleine D, Carvalho C, Bartholo R, Hughes A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: The Geographical Journal
Year: 2024
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 27/11/2023
Acceptance date: 23/10/2023
Date deposited: 23/10/2023
ISSN (print): 0016-7398
ISSN (electronic): 1475-4959
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12562
DOI: 10.1111/geoj.12562
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/jjgs-en42
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