Working Paper 7: Food and urban politics in Belo Horizonte: agroecology, activist coalitions,
and bottom-up technologies of sustainable urbanization
In this Working Paper, I aim to contribute to the emerging debate between food and urban studies by bringing to the fore the socio-political dimension of the food system and its urban context. Guided by the general research questions of the project “Food for Justice: Power, Politics, and Food Inequalities in a Bioeconomy”, this research is embedded in a case study on food politics in the city of Belo Horizonte.
It deals with the social innovations of the agroecological and housing movements of the city and the dwellers of Izidora, inhabitants of a so-called “informal settlement”, whose engagement in the fight for housing and the right to the city has yielded remarkable achievements in building activist coalitions and re-signifying marginal urban spaces. Drawing on digital-ethnographic fieldwork I conducted between January
and December 2020, I analyze the context, use, and reach of these social innovations as an instrument to transform urban development in the peripheries of Belo Horizonte.
Food for Justice: Power, Politics and Food Inequalities in a Bioeconomy
Heidelberg University
Heidelberg Centrum für Ibero-Amerika Studien – HCIAS
Brunnengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg
foodforjustice@uni-heidelberg.de
Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies
Brunnengasse 1
69117 Heidelberg, Germany
hcias@uni-heidelberg.de
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