W4: THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF FOOD IN SUSTAINING CITIES

26 Oct 2019
13:30 - 16:30
Undervisningsrom 2

W4: THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF FOOD IN SUSTAINING CITIES

Time: 13:30 – 16:30

Location: Undervisningsrom 2

The workshop is facilitated by:

Aim of the workshop

  • Food practices are a key topic and tool for creating more sustainable and smart cities. Local collective food practices such as community gardens, food rescue, and shared meals can promote healthier diets, greater social inclusion and cohesion, and support the recycling of urban wastes through composting and wastewater reuse. However, many diverse food practices go unseen, remaining small, fragmented, and dominated by middle-class projects. Consequently, the multiple benefits of urban food practices do not include the wider public, and are often overlooked by policy and planning bodies.
  • This workshop seeks to explore how urban food practices can be made more visible to wider society for greater uptake, such as through the senses, the creation of new spaces or involvement in wider networks. How can such practices be made more economically sustainable to overcome issues of volunteer dependency and lack of funding; What strategies can be employed to make sure that urban food practices are socially inclusive; How can these practices be better integrated within local policy and planning to ensure their longevity; How can emerging technologies in the smart city play a supportive role for food practices towards creating more sustainable cities?

Content

  • The format will roughly follow:
  1. Discussion of the importance of urban food practices, the diversity of examples, and the barriers they face.
  2. Strategies for overcoming key issues that include the need for greater visibility, economic sustainability, social inclusion, integration into local policy and planning, and the potential role of emerging technologies. Short presentation of the issues will be followed by breakout groups with discussion feeding back into the larger group.

Preparations

  • We will provide a reading list of key texts (academic, city and initiative websites, that speak to these themes). We also ask that registered participants send us a short biography that specifies their experience in this topic and their interest in attending the workshop. Participants should bring a notebook and/or PC are advised but not required. If participants want to share their experiences with other members, they are welcome to bring flyers or papers of their related work.

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