Food as a natureculture entanglement: A study on gender and food relationsMeike Brückner

Conference in English

The mastery and economization of nature is extensively discussed in the feminist debate on the global environmental crisis. Feminist scholars criticized the construction of nature as passive and dead matter on the one hand and 'life-giving mother' on the other. At the core, the separation between nature and culture is understood as the reason for the environmental crisis and a hierarchical gender order. In her talk, Meike Brückner  presents central arguments of feminist perspectives on the human-nature relationship.

This nature-culture dualism also shapes the agrifood system in complex ways. With the example of food, her presentation illustrates how nature and culture intertwine. In food decisions and practices boundaries between human and non-human can blur and a relatedness to elements of nature such as seeds, soil and plants can be performed. However, aspects of asymmetrical relations among humans and non-humans and gendered inequalities must be considered. Informed by an empirical study in Kenya, Meike Brückner demonstrates examples of women’s practices of naturecultures entanglements such as the participation in collective cooking sessions in which environmental knowledge and expertise is shared or the rejection of exotic vegetables to support a place-based food production.