Placing women's food work in a global pandemic: a critical comparative case study of Bristol and Stockholm

This proposed PhD studentship analyses the impacts of Covid-19 on women's material and imagined future foodscapes in the cities of Bristol, UK and Stockholm, Sweden. Preliminary research suggests that, in the UK specifically, urban foodscapes-i.e. the places and spaces we access, make and discuss food in the urban landscape-have been and continue to be significantly impacted by the pandemic. Women, as unpaid, domestic food carers and volunteer, 'community food carers' at foodbanks-as well as paid food workers in the formal economy-have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic given the increasing complexities of accessing food at home, the expanding burden of food preparation during lockdown and the loss of income from the loss of food service employment that relies heavily on female labour. Yet, women of more marginal standing-e.g. women of colour, low-income, single parents, migrant status, asylum seekers-have been most detrimentally impacted by the pandemic through an exacerbation of pre-existing, intersectional social inequalities that women faced pre-Covid. No research to date has looked to understand the unequal past and ongoing impacts of Covid on unpaid and paid women's food work, their lives and life chances-and relatedly those of their children and wider families-and the wider formal and informal urban foodscapes they are embedded in. Moreover, no research to date has attempted to capture women's 'geographical imaginaries' of what a more 'resilient' and/or 'just' foodscape might look like post-Covid and how these visions might inform government food policy and community food provision.
Drawing on feminist geography, feminist political economy and critical food geography, this proposed research will examine i) how Covid impacted and reshaped the foodscapes for paid and non-paid women food workers in Bristol and Stockholm through a critical comparative analysis of the two cities; ii) how women's experiences of these impacts and Covid-changed foodscapes were shaped by intersectional dimensions such class, race, gender and migrant status; and iii) what women in these two contexts imagine as more resilient foodscape and how these re-imaginings might empower women with respect to urban food policy and their communities.
Data will be collected though i) a feminist critical frame analysis (CFA) of British and Swedish food, health, business and disaster policy documents in response to Covid; ii) participant observation through volunteer work in social food initiatives and women's community support groups in Stockholm and Bristol; iii) qualitative interviews and focus groups with woman food workers and actors within food (re)distribution networks in these initiatives and groups; and iv) participatory workshops designed to co-produce knowledge of women's visions for more resilient and just urban foodscapes as well as inform urban food policy.
The proposed impacts of this research are four-fold. First, the research will contribute to geographically-inflected, feminist understandings of women's unpaid and paid food work as impacted by Covid through the production of a PhD, scholarly and participatory outputs and public-facing reports and policy documents. Second, given the lens of feminist and participatory approaches deployed in the study, this research looks to support the action-oriented empowerment of the women participants and food and poverty community groups involved in the study during the ongoing Covid crisis. Third, through the production of public-facing outputs, policy-related reports and potential engagements with local and regional policy makers, this research looks to contribute to the future formulation of more resilient and just foodscapes. Fourth, this funded research project will allow me to pursue my goal of becoming an academic geographer in the field of feminist food geographies and allow me to support the food-work of the most vulnerable women in parts of the UK and Sweden affected by Covid.