Food Politics Policies

AY2020/2021 Semester 1

This course will introduce you to the politics and policies of food in several countries, international organisations, and across time. Food is fundamentally essential to our physical existence, but it is also intensely cultural, with socially constructed behaviour and preferences that are change-resistant even in the presence of new knowledge, policies, and practices. How have different historical, social, economic, political, and institutional factors contributed to shaping national and international food policy outcomes? In this course, we begin with a heuristic analytical framework that enables you to study how interests, ideas, instruments, and institutions interact and affect the formation, development, and implementation of national and international food policy decisions. This course is organised around four themes: politics of food identity; globalisation or glocalisation; politics of food scandals; and international politics of food. By taking this course, you will learn how food is a powerful lens to understand contemporary politics and policies beyond consumption and nutrition.