Hitting the ground: an international arts-led transdisciplinary partnership to address GBV in food systems through a body/story/environment approach

GBV touches virtually on all aspects of life. However, its relationship to food systems - the complex networks of people and activities involved in food, from production to consumption - is largely not understood. This is surprising given the importance of food in our daily lives and that the gendered nature of food systems is well established: women are disproportionately represented in informal and unpaid labour in food systems, and their labour is characterised by intense manual work, often combined with care and community work — including food provision — with low or no pay or protection, poor access to resources and limited decision-making authority. These issues are more pronounced when gender interacts with other intersectional characteristics. However, how these systemic issues link to the food system remains largely unrecognised by high-level decision makers such as the High-Level Panel for Food Security and Nutrition, and GBV prevention and support interventions. Experience in the sector informs us that this 'gap' in policy, research and practice is related to a lack of evidence of the relationship between GBV and food systems, in addition to the lack of appropriate, and trauma informed skills and methodologies within the food systems research community.

Our vision is to facilitate a new policy, research and practice agenda to address GBV and contribute to building food systems that are safe, dignifying and empowering. We focus on women workers who occupy precarious positions within the food system, particularly, but not limited to, the Global South. Our project has three research objectives:

Firstly, we will establish an arts-led international and transdisciplinary research partnership to co-create an innovative new methodology - 'body/story/environment' - to increase understanding and prevention of GBV in food systems from women's intersectional and embodied perspectives. This approach merges somatic practice and storywork in place (activities linked...