CfP: The right to (healthy and sustainable) food: an intersectional perspective on access, inequalities and lived experiences

Datum
21. Sep­tem­ber 2026 

Hybrid pan­el at IMISCOE annu­al con­fer­ence Brussels 

CfP for Pan­el at 24th IMISCOE annu­al con­fer­ence: „Unit­ed for Human Rights and Glob­al Equity”
6–9 July 2027
Brus­sels and online

CfPs for the pan­el pro­pos­al below on “The right to (healthy and sus­tain­able) food: an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive on access, inequal­i­ties and lived expe­ri­ences”. Please send your paper pro­pos­als includ­ing a 250-word abstract and the name(s), affiliation(s), and con­tact details of the author(s) by email to Elsa Mescoli e.mescoli@uliege.be and Paula Fer­nan­dez Gar­cia pfgarcia@uliege.be by 21 Sep­tem­ber 2026 at the lat­est. Please also let us know if you are plan­ning to attend the con­fer­ence in Brus­sels or online.

Pan­el proposal

Title: The right to (healthy and sus­tain­able) food: an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive on access, inequal­i­ties and lived experiences.

Con­venors: Elsa Mescoli and Paula Fer­nan­dez Gar­cia (Uni­ver­si­ty of Liège)

Abstract: In recent years, the ques­tion of the right to food has become increas­ing­ly sig­nif­i­cant, with grow­ing eco­log­i­cal and pub­lic health con­cerns prompt­ing the devel­op­ment of a wide range of ini­tia­tives to ensure access to healthy, sus­tain­able food for all. Across Europe and beyond, diverse food tran­si­tion ini­tia­tives have emerged in urban areas, call­ing for changes in res­i­dents’ food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion prac­tices. These ini­tia­tives, which include social gro­cery stores, sol­i­dar­i­ty pur­chas­ing groups, com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and food social secu­ri­ty schemes, often present them­selves as inclu­sive. They seek to engage pop­u­la­tion groups that are typ­i­cal­ly per­ceived as less involved in food tran­si­tion move­ments than pre­dom­i­nant­ly white, mid­dle-class par­tic­i­pants, due to their socio-eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, with migrants often iden­ti­fied as one of the key tar­get groups.

In this pan­el, we exam­ine the right to healthy and sus­tain­able food from three com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives. First, we analyse the poli­cies and mech­a­nisms designed to pro­mote broad access to healthy and sus­tain­able food. Sec­ond­ly, we inves­ti­gate how these mech­a­nisms oper­ate in prac­tice, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the bar­ri­ers they gen­er­ate and the inequal­i­ties they repro­duce or rein­force. Third­ly, we explore how peo­ple from dif­fer­ent social back­grounds expe­ri­ence these ini­tia­tives in every­day life.

Adopt­ing an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive and draw­ing on empir­i­cal mate­r­i­al from var­i­ous socio-cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal and geo­graph­i­cal con­texts, the pan­el high­light how social posi­tions shaped by struc­tur­al fac­tors that pro­duce and sus­tain socio-eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties influ­ence dis­cours­es and ini­tia­tives sur­round­ing the right to healthy and sus­tain­able food, along­side the ways in which indi­vid­u­als nav­i­gate (or remain exclud­ed from) them.