Constructing and Contesting Food Sovereignty: Food Lines, Fault Lines and Seeds of Transformation in Venezuela

Ms. Schiavoni's research studies shows how an alternative proposal for social and ecological transformation in the face of a converging set of global crises, food sovereignty serves as a galvanizing concept for a growing number of movements across the globe. She argued in her thesis that key to theorizing about food sovereignty is drawing lessons from its attempted construction on the ground, as movements and other actors are forced to confront its contradictions, inconsistencies and many gray areas head-on.

Toward such ends, her study advances a historical, relational and interactive (HRI) framework that approaches food sovereignty construction as a historically embedded, continually evolving set of processes that are interactively shaped by state and societal forces, reflecting competing paradigms and approaches. Ms. Schiavone applied the HRI framework to the case of Venezuela, home to one of the longest-running national- level experiments in food sovereignty construction since the start of its political process known as the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999.

Chair

Professor Arjun Bedi

Doctoral dissertation supervisor

Professor Max Spoor 

Co-supervisor

Dr Mindi Schneider 

Members of the Full Doctoral Committee

Professor Hannah Wittman, The University of British Columbia 

Dr Priscilla Claeys, Coventry University

Professor Eric Vanhaute, Ghent University

Dr Helen Hintjens

Dr Oane Visser

The ceremony will be followed by a reception in the Atrium of the ISS. Professors are invited to join the academic procession.