Call for Papers – Special Issue Journal of Agrarian Change
Transformations of Foodways: Coloniality, Resistance and Resurgence
Indigenous, peasant, local, and subsistence foodways have been under significant pressure for decades, as international trade, agricultural subsidies, land grabs, and the corporate industrialization of food systems have taken hold. These processes have not only resulted in the erosion of traditional foodways, but also in the commodification and commercialization of culturally significant foods, as more and more communities engage in production for the market rather than for their own sustenance or cultural and spiritual reasons. At the same time, these processes have also given rise to new forms of resistance and resurgence, as communities seek to reclaim their food sovereignty and reassert their identities through traditional foodways and their relations to the more-than-human world.
Tracing transformations of foodways in different contexts and regions, this Special Issue invites contributions that critically explore one or more of the following three processes:
- the ways in which colonialisms, in both their historical and contemporary forms, have disrupted and transformed traditional food systems, including the interruption of food systems based on hunting, fishing gathering and the curating of forests, through dispossession, land use changes, forced sedentarisation or the introduction of new crops;
- the many strategies that indigenous, peasant, and other groups have used to defend their foodways, from mobilization under the banner of food sovereignty and legal activism, to the reclamation of local knowledge, territories and seeds, as well as the promotion of alternative modes of agriculture and food producer-to-eater relationships;
- the ways in which diverse actors are making use of the commercial potential of traditional foods and the tensions and opportunities this gives rise to in an era overshadowed by the dominant logics of globalized food systems.
Submission Guidelines and Timeline
- Abstract of 250-350 words by March 3rd, 2025 (emails below).
- Notifications of conditional acceptance will be sent back to you by March 17th, 2025.
- Feedback on your draft paper if you send it to us by May 19th, 2025.
- Full papers, targeting 7,000–12,000 words including notes and references, should be submitted by June 16th, 2025 via the journal’s submission system.
- All papers submitted to this Special Issue will need to pass through the journal’s peer review process
- We are aiming for publication of the Special Issue in early 2026, but any paper accepted by the journal will be published immediately as OnlineFirst with DOI and is hence fully citeable from that moment.
For more information on the aims and scope of the Journal of Agrarian Change, please visit https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14710366.
Send your abstracts and inquiries (if any) to Nina Moeller ninam[at]sdu.dk, Jessica Milgroom fs2mimij[at]uco.es and Lopa Saxena lopa.saxena[at]coventry.ac.uk
