COVID-19 can be a catalyst for decolonising and decarbonising food systems research
Stephen Whitfield, associate director for Food in the Global South at the Global Food and Environment Institute at Leeds, reflects on the roles and responsibilities of UK research institutes that work in the Global South, and the opportunity that COVID-19 represents to accelerate efforts to decolonise and decarbonise this research.
The global nature of our food supply and value chains is such that the availability, affordability and accessibility of food across the diverse contexts of the Global North and South are highly interdependent.
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic — which has manifest in agriculture labour shortages, problematic supply chain logistics, food price rises, and reduced food access for those that have been economically disadvantaged — has shed a light on the vulnerabilities of this interconnected global food system.
Research that crosses disciplines and sectors has an important role to play in addressing the imperative challenges of improving access to safe and nutritious food for all, sustainably increasing productivity, building resilience to climate and economic shocks and stress, and more. This is the primary aim of the Global Food and Environment Institute.
As a research institution in the Global North, we have a responsibility and (inescapably) a vested interest in contributing to addressing food system challenges in the Global South.
The University of Leeds has a diverse and growing portfolio of research on food and agricultural systems in the Global South. Much of this work responds to development challenges, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals and prioritised within the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund, through which Leeds has received over £50 million in funding.
Our responsibility towards decarbonising and decolonising research activity
However, research in the Global South brings with it moral and ethical dilemmas that many of us involved in such work continually wrestle with.
Work within the Global South takes place in contexts with deeply rooted political histories of colonialism and development intervention that have acted to shape contemporary inequalities and power asymmetries.
As the University’s portfolio of research activity in the Global South grows, so too does its responsibility towards decolonising and decarbonising that activity.
Representing a University that is supported by UK government funding, and often working under the banner of short term ‘development’ projects, there is significant risk that our activities contribute towards an ongoing, damaging colonial narrative.
Moreover, frequent long haul travel from the UK, for research purposes and for participation in the international academic and development conference circuits, means that this work leaves behind a long-lasting environmental footprint. One that the University has a stated commitment towards reducing.
Of course, this isn’t a new revelation. Campaigns for, and responses to, the need for responsible, low carbon, de-colonised research have decades of history that have resulted in gradual, albeit piecemeal, changes in research practice and culture in the UK. And the calls for and responses to these responsibilities have been stronger in some disciplines than others.
The impact of COVID-19 and moving online
But as we necessarily shift our research practice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the travel restrictions that it has placed on everyone, perhaps this is also an opportunity to accelerate efforts towards decolonising and decarbonising research. An opportunity to bring about a more wholescale shift not only in research practice, but in underlying academic culture.
Decolonising and decarbonising research is not simply about doing things remotely — conducting our meetings, conferences, and data collection through online tools and platforms. As many of us will have experienced, these platforms don’t necessarily simplify or remove barriers.
Indeed, online working can be even more exclusive, extractive and reinforcing of power dynamics than the more conventional pre-COVID ‘helicopter research’ that sees ‘experts’ from the Global North fly in and out in a physical sense. Beyond excluding those without reliable and affordable access to the internet, which is characteristic of large sectors of society in the Global South, working online can make language and translation barriers more pronounced, and also limit opportunities for non-verbal and non-textual expressions of knowledge and emotion.
What role can we play?
Thinking about our role and identity as “researchers in development” differently starts with acknowledging the power and privilege associated with our position as members of the University, being informed about the history of oppressive domination of western philosophy and knowledge in which we are embedded, and being aware of own personal contributions. Knowing our footprint.
Engaging with initiatives within the University itself, such as on decolonising the curriculum and the University Climate Plan offers accessible opportunities for this learning and reflection.
But we can also go further.
Within the Global Food and Environment Institute, we can use our privileged access to resource to fortify long term equal partnerships with institutions in the Global South, playing a secondary and supporting role to those partners as they direct and lead research activity.
And at the same time lobby for changes to the norms of research funding, publishing, impact reporting, and reward schemes that incentivise inequality or exclusivity within these partnerships.
We can use our privileged access to communications platforms and peer-review publications to give a greater voice to marginalised or otherwise unheard perspectives and knowledge. This has been done, for example, in work at the University on participatory film-making in Malawi.
We can use our networks and expertise to engage in shared learning, skills development and leadership experience for early career researchers in partner countries, as is being done within exciting new programmes of work at the University such as the Farmers’ perspectives on challenges in the food system: a collaborative research partnership. In this project the University of Leeds is working with colleagues in the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA) and Universities in Ghana and Tanzania to support young academics and activists in those countries to lead research projects that respond to farmer priorities. And the Food Systems Research Network for Africa programme, which will provide fellowships to early career interdisciplinary researchers in six African countries.
Tackling the complex global challenges associated with health and the environment requires effective partnerships across the Global North and South. As the COVID-19 pandemic limits our ability to move physically across the food system, we have more collective interdependence on our partnerships than ever.
This interdependency has the potential to bring about positive impacts in response to our colonial legacies and environmental footprints, but only if it manifests in partnerships that are equitable, enduring and just.
Stephen Whitfield is associate director for Food in the Global South at the Global Food and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds.
This was first published on the University of Leeds channel. We have the permission of the author to republish.
