Northeastern University College of Social Sciences and Humanities’ Post

Friend and colleague Diego Thompson & I published "Intersections between rural studies and food justice in the U.S.: some implications for today and the future" in Food, Culture, & Society in 2022; it is now out in the world in print and I have a link to 50 free downloads below: "Justice is a term increasingly used in rural studies and agri-food systems research. In this article, we examine how rural studies can gain by more directly integrating food justice and its focus on transformative intervention. First, we identify existing gaps in discussions about social justice in relation to rurality in the United States. Second, we analyze prominent food justice literature and its main conceptualizations, characteristics, and gaps in relation to rurality. Drawing on existing gaps and opportunities in rural studies and food justice, we discuss why and how critical analyses of race/white supremacy, intersectionality, and engaged scholarship can strengthen the study of injustices in rural settings. In prioritizing these aspects, rural scholars might adopt powerful lenses for interrogating the ongoing hegemonies of rural communities while also facilitating greater engagement in social justice within and outside our disciplines." #rurality #ruraljustice #socialjustice #ruralstudies #foodstudies https://lnkd.in/g73wnMYW

This is the final part of my takeaways from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy's annual conference in March 2024. The fourth panel was about governance, questioning how the civil service should be reformed for the 21st century. Anjana from the Financial Times shared her views using alliteration in true journalistic style. The Civil Service should aim to be: Curious and Connected Collating Evidence Commissioning (work/expertise) Critiquing and Challenging (to find clarity and working cross-departmentally) [offer] Continuity. Jonathan from King's College London and Queen Mary University of London advocated for more diversity, less emotional detachment and openness to public scrutiny (less meetings behind closed doors). Hannah from the Institute for Government spoke about more clarity and accountability, holding civil servants and ministers responsible for the delivery of policies. Other key points: *More checks and balances are needed. *Transparency is key, it cannot be emphasised enough, both in business as usual and during crises.   Prof Dennis C. Grube (Chair) Dr Anjana Ahuja Jonathan Slater Dr Hannah White OBE A keynote lecture concluded the conference, delivered by Henry Dimbleby, a food campaigner and co-founder of LEON Restaurants. It was preceded by a talk by Dame Fiona Reynolds. Urgent action is required as farming and food production are not sustainable while unhealthy diets are crippling public healthcare providers. Intensive farming is leading to biodiversity collapse, water scarcity, deforestation and climate change. Food production is the most disruptive activity to the planet after energy production. Prof Deborah-Prentice (chair) Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE Henry Dimbleby, MBE   #climatechange #farming #civilservice #change #foodproduction #politics #policy University of Cambridge

The new issue of Breakthroughs, the magazine of the Rausser College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley is titled "Pathways to Equity: Improving welfare, advancing environmental justice". It covers some great stories of faculty, students, researchers, and students who are working towards #environmentaljustice. They cover our research group at Occidental College in a story "Academics as Activism". Check it out! Go Bears! #UCBerkeley

BREAKING NEWS!! If you haven’t heard Kerry Worsnop’s presentation about a future for farming in NZ before, you really must join this webinar. Kerry is well researched, well considered and offers pragmatic yet bold thought leadership for NZ, it’s food growers and it’s policy makers in regards agricultural policy. Kerry brings a fresh perspective to some complex issues and wicked problems. Make sure you join in this webinar for all! I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Have you heard about Project 2025: very much in the political and policy news over the past couple weeks? I read through (not every page) of the nearly 1000 page document and published brief insights about how rural issues are handled, in The Daily Yonder: https://lnkd.in/ewy7EbZM

New paper out! 📃 https://lnkd.in/drRNM594 Key messages: 1️⃣ Multi-actor urban food governance spaces act as a form of informal knowledge-policy interfaces – or hybrid forums – that facilitate the anchoring and scaling of social innovations, as well as collective learning and multi-scalar knowledge co-production. 2️⃣ There is a case for building on these existing infrastructures to surpass current challenges related to urban food policy and evidence-informed policymaking as it struggles to remain a relevant policy field for city councils, contributing to the persistence of a linear model of science-policy relations. 3️⃣ Translocal linkages are a promising avenue for advancing this process, with the potential to transcend specific contextual boundaries and connect evidence produced at various levels and distant places to local challenges. Ana Moragues #foodpolic #governance #foodsystems #evidence #knowledge #cities

The second article from Professor Muiris MacCarthaigh, Queen's University Belfast, Professor Colin Scott, University College Dublin and myself has just been published in Irish Political Studies (open access). This forms part of an upcoming special issue on ‘Birth of a State’. Here we analyse trends of both continuity and change which characterised the early years of the Irish state administration. We refer to this as ‘administrative greening’. Drawing on data from the Irish State Administration Database, we show how this ‘greening’ varied in tempo across different policy domains. Abstract: The establishment of Saorstát Éireann (the Irish Free State) in 1922 did not herald a fundamental overhaul of the administrative machinery inherited from Whitehall and Dublin Castle. Path dependent continuities in legislation and executive orders underpinned the new dispensation. At the same time, a process of evolutionary change, which we call ‘administrative greening’, was underway. Drawing on data in the Irish State Administration Database (ISAD), and building on our analysis in Biggins, J., MacCarthaigh, M., & Scott, C. (2024). ‘Priming the state: Continuity and junctures in the foundation of the Irish administration’, we explore these dynamics of both continuity and change in the formative years of the new state’s public administration. In so doing, we attest to patterns of normative production and reproduction, illustrated with reference to a number of legislative and administrative examples. https://lnkd.in/ezXNMRZv

📢 Exciting News! 🌊🌍 We are thrilled to announce the release the first volume published of The International Journal for Water Equity and Justice (IJWEJ)! Volume 10 of IJWEJ focuses on emergent and groundbreaking work addressing water equity and justice issues globally, and aims to amplify issues at the intersection of water resources and a vast range of topics, including the impediments to water justice, and pathways to overcome past and current water injustice. IJWEJ Dialog, the journal’s featured blog, provides an exciting avenue to cover a wide range of content through various multimedia publications, broadening the scope of discourse beyond the peer-review structure. Co-created with the Global Water Alliance, this journal reflects a broader mission to promote scholarly and creative discourse related to global progress and challenges around water equity and justice. Explore Volume 10 here: https://lnkd.in/esuG8Zeb Thank you to our Editor-in-Chief Amisha Shahra, our Editorial Board Christiaan Morssink, Howard Neukrug, PE, Jayati Chourey, PhD, Katie Baillie, and Lauren Esposito Anderson, Issue Editors Pam Lazos and Mariet Verhoef-Cohen, and Publisher Penn Libraries and Cosette Bruhns Alonso, Ph.D. for their work in making this Journal a reality. #InternationalJournalforWaterEquityandJustice #IJWEJ #wh2O #WaterEquity #EnvironmentalJustice #WaterResources #Research #Journal #WaterSustainability #GlobalWaterEquity

Huge congratulations to Matt Royer (SAFES Associate Director of Partnerships & Engagement and Director of the Agriculture and Environment Center) and his team for receiving the 2024 Leadership in Action Award for leading "Pennsylvania in the Balance", which has been "praised for its ability to convene critical stakeholders and build consensus on conservation policies." This is SAFES at its best - integrating across our three pillars: research, partnerships & engagement, and education - to help Pennsylvania implement solutions to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. https://lnkd.in/eGsfKVPe

In the most recent episode of #DoTheChange, we had a riveting conversation with Rezahn Abraha, MPH, who recently graduated from UC Berkeley in Environmental Health Sciences and Global Health. Rezahn has worked as a Graduate Student Researched in environmental policy analysis, exposure, assessment, and epidemiological research, and has taught as a Graduate Student Instructor. In our conversation, we discussed building a career in environmental health, incorporating social justice into your work, and the importance of mentorship. Click here to listen: https://lnkd.in/gFkGk_bE #EnvironmentalHealth #GlobalHealth #HealthEquity #OEHS