MiFOOD WS2 Configuration Workshop: Migrant Precarity and Urban Food in the Global South
2024-03-20 08:30 - 11:40 (America/Toronto) | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join the webinar using this link: https://cigionline-org.zoom.us/j/82451733735?pwd=[REDACTED]
The MiFOOD Network and the IMRC welcome your participation in the MiFOOD WS2 Configuration Workshop on “Migrant Precarity and Urban Food in the Global South”. This workshop brings together esteemed and early-career scholars to discuss research plans focusing on Workstream 2 of the MiFOOD project—specifically, the role of migrants in transforming urban food chains. Researchers will engage in a comprehensive exploration of the interplay between migration, informality, gender, and food security. Spanning geographical regions including Asia, Latin America and Africa, the sessions will cover diverse topics: the links between migration and food security, the role of migrants in urban food systems, the impact of COVID-19 on women informal food vendors, and various other facets of food environments in the Global South. The purpose of this workshop is to contribute scholarly perspectives on the complex challenges surrounding migrant precarity and food systems in the Global South. It aims to foster the generation of new research ideas through mutual learning, and provide opportunities for comparative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative studies within and beyond the MiFOOD network.
Agenda

Session 1: Asia
8:30-9:30

Irudaya Rajan (IIMAD, India). “Food Security and the Kerala Migration Survey”.
Sujata Ramachandran (BSIA, Canada). “‘Little Pockets of Happiness’: Nepali Migrants and Momos Informal Enterprises in New Delhi, India”.
Huiguang Chen (Nanjing Agricultural University, China). “Understanding the Reciprocal Links Between Migration and Food Security in Nanjing and the Nearby Changzhou Cities, China”.
Taiyang Zhong (Nanjing University, China). “Role of Migrants in Urban Food Retailing: Focusing on Vendors and Takeaway Riders”.

Session 2: Latin America
9:30-10:00

Tiana Hayden (El Colegio de México), Fernanda Vazquez (Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico). “The Role of (Transit) Migrants in Urban Food Systems in Three Mexican Cities”.
Mercedes Eguiguren (BSIA, Canada). “Beyond Informality: Migrants in the Popular Food Economy in Quito”.

Break
10:00-10:10
Session 3: Africa 1
10:10-10:55

Sam Owuor (University of Nairobi, Kenya). “The Impact of COVID-19 on Women Informal Food Vendors in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements.”
Elizabeth Onyango (University of Alberta, Canada). “A Gendered Analysis of the Role of Women-led Informal Food Businesses in Urban Household Food Security and Wellbeing of Urban Dwellers Kisumu City, Kenya.”
Cherie Enns (University of the Fraser Valley, Canada). “Urban South Sudanese Refugees: Opportunities and Constraints Related to Food Supply Chains in Nairobi and Nakuru Kenya.”

Session 4: Africa 2
10:55-11:25

Sean Sithole (University of the Western Cape, South Africa). “Urban Transformation, African Migrants and the Informal Food System in Cape Town”.
Bernard Owusu (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada). “Examining the Meat Food Value Chain and Food System in Accra, Ghana”.

Concluding Remarks
11:25-11:40
Download the agenda

Wars, Displaced Populations and Food Insecurity
2024-03-26 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join the webinar: https://cigionline-org.zoom.us/j/81730518530?pwd=[REDACTED]
Despite some notable progress towards the targets of Rome Declaration on foodcsecurity in some countries around the world, food insecurity rates continue to rise among the most vulnerable groups in recent years again. World Food Program estimated that as many as 783 million people were facing chronic hunger in 2023. The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) reported that food insecurity rates reached crisis level in 55 countries/territories both in terms of severity of the situation and the numbers of people involved and a significant portion of these are warn torn countries. While rising inflation, COVID-19 and financial crisis are often blamed, one of the most significant contributors to food insecurity has been wars and other forms of armed conflict in certain parts of the world. Wars destroy lives, livelihoods and environment. Funds spent for armament also rub societies out of investing in social welfare and development.
Displaced peoples are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. According to the UNHCR, the numbers of people who fled their homes because of armed conflict and persecution reached to an unprecedented 100 million people around the world in 2022. Displaced people because of armed conflict have been the most significant contributors to rising food insecurity rates in recent decades.
Koc argues that food insecurity should be seen beyond the food system’s failure in food provisioning but located in the failure of the key institutions of power in modern societies: international agencies of governance, the nation states, and the market. Using examples from recent cases of armed conflict from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Palestine this paper examines how armed conflicts contribute to food insecurity at the national, regional and global levels.
About the speaker
Mustafa Koc is emeritus professor of Sociology and the Director Centre for Studies in Food Security at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research and teaching interests involve food studies, food security, food policy, and the sociology of migration. Professor Koc was among the founders of the Centre for Studies in Food Security, Food Secure Canada, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies. His publications on the sociology of agriculture and food, social change and development, and immigration, include For Hunger-proof Cities, Working Together (2001), Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Food Studies (2008), Küresel Gıda Düzeni: Kriz Derinleşirken, and Critical Perspectives in Food Studies. His current research focuses on culinary practices, food security, and food safety concerns of immigrants and refugees. Prof. Koc received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement award from the Canadian Association for Food Studies (2017).
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Food Security Among Latin American Adolescent Migrants in North America
2024-04-23 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
MiFOOD webinar no. 17
This presentation will focus on the intersection between adolescent migration and food security in north America, with a particular focus on adolescents who migrate unaccompanied, some as ‘minors’.
Adolescence is a phase of continued growth and development in which nutritional needs are higher than in several other life course stages but are also highly variable depending on factors such as pubertal stage, gender, as well as levels of physical activity. Adolescent migrants that are mid-transit (on the move) may be especially resilient given their relative youth and overall health, but may simultaneously have heighted vulnerability to food insecurity, violence, trafficking, among other issues that migrants experience while in transit. Unaccompanied adolescents’ vulnerability to food insecurity while on the move may depend in part on emotional maturity, as well as metabolic needs, and the mismatch between the quotidian routine of overland migration and their own circadian rhythms. Additionally, adolescent migrants may be less habituated to plan for, prepare, or procure their meals, and thus the stressors of migration may particularly impact access to foods that they can use as sources of nourishment. Within Latin American migrant routes, there are additional factors that can impede food access such as perceived (and real) threats of violence, deportation, or detention, all of which may delay their ability to reach their destinations. Local and regional well- meaning policies may inadvertently increase the perception of threat for adolescent migrants causing them to forego access to food in attempts at self-preservation.
The presenters join their expertise in policies impacting service access among migrants in Mexico (C Infante) and in food security among unaccompanied adolescent migrants (M Orjuela-Grimm) to discuss the confluence of factors that may influence food security among adolescents in active transit.
Speakers
Cesar Infante Xibille (National Institute of Public Health, Mexico)
Since 2000, Dr. Cesar Infante Xibille has been undertaking research on vulnerable groups such as mobile populations, gay men, male sex workers on issues related to HIV/AIDS, human rights, and access to health care services. Cesar has been conducting research with migrants in transit through Mexico in very close collaboration with migrant houses and shelters for more than 20 years. His research has a Human Rights-related focus and greater part has concentrated on HIV/AIDS, violence (including sexual violence), stigma and discrimination, and access to health care services for migrants in transit through Mexico to the USA. Cesar is currently co-coordinator of the Research Unit on Migration and Health at the National Institute of Public Health.
Manuela Orjuela Grimm MD ScM (Columbia University, New York City)
Manuela is an associate professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at the Columbia University Medical Center. Manuela’s current research examines the intersection of nutrition, food insecurity and violence in Latin American migrants, and includes assessing dietary practices, food and nutrition insecurity and mental health outcomes in adolescents who have migrated overland as unaccompanied minors from Latin America and have resettled in NYC. Manuela has also cofounded (with Cesar Infante) a multi-sectorial working group which examines food insecurity among Latin American migrants transiting overland through Mexico. Manuela participates in a UNICEF funded working group examining the intersection of Gender Based Violence with nutrition outcomes in mothers and girls. Other work has focused on the measurement of dietary intake, and nutrients in mothers and preschool children in Mexico and among Latin American migrants in NYC. Manuela was a visiting professor at Bielefeld University in Germany (2022), focusing on the intersection of transnationalism, migration and health.
The webinar will be chaired by Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González. Dr. González is the Junior Professor for “Migration and the Americas” at the Heidelberg University Center for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS). She is an anthropologist and an ethnographer, focusing on area studies, sociology of migration, and anthropology of everyday life.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Migration, Food and Politics in South Africa: Contestations Over Immigrant-owned Grocery Shops in South Africa and Their Implications for Food Security
2024-05-29 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join the webinar: https://cigionline-org.zoom.us/j/86722658785?pwd=[REDACTED]
MiFOOD webinar no. 18
Many immigrants are concentrated in South Africa’s informal grocery shop (or ‘spaza’) sector. These shops often play an intermediary role between large formal wholesaler sectors and low-income informal township markets. Their emergence over the past two decades has introduced new business practices and services to township economies with many positive benefits for food insecure consumers. At the same time rivalry with South African shopkeepers, and resentment and suspicion among surrounding residents has led to many immigrant grocery shops falling victim to violent attack, state clamp downs, and legislative efforts to limit their ability to operate. These political currents – which often espouse to advance citizens’ economic interests – threaten to destabilise and disrupt access to food in low income areas.
Speaker
Vanya Gastrow, University of Cape Town
Vanya Gastrow is a Senior Researcher in in the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies and an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s department of public law. She has a PhD in Migration Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Over the past 14 years, Vanya has worked and consulted on research projects relating to migration in South Africa. These include studies on crime affecting immigrant retailers, their ability to access justice mechanisms, their role in local economies, and the regulation of their shops.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Food Waste, Food Insecurity, and the Globalization of the Food Banks
2024-06-25 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
MiFOOD webinar no. 19
Join the webinar on June 25, 2024 at 10:00 am EDT using this Zoom link: https://cigionline-org.zoom.us/j/86056410200?pwd=[REDACTED]
Food banks—warehouses that collect and systematize surplus food—have expanded into one of the largest mechanisms to redistribute food waste. From their origins in North America in the 1960s, food banks provide food to communities in approximately one hundred countries on six continents. This presentation analyzes the development of food banks across the world and the limits of food charity to reduce food insecurity and food waste. Based on fifteen years of in-depth fieldwork on four continents, Daniel Warshawsky illustrates how and why food banks proliferate across the globe even though their impacts may be limited. He suggests that we need to reformulate the role of food banks. The mission of food banks needs to be more realistic, as food surpluses cannot reduce food insecurity on a significant scale. Food banks need to regain their institutional independence from the state and corporations and incorporate the knowledge and experiences of the food insecure in the daily operations of the food system. These collective changes can contribute to a future where food banks play a smaller but more targeted role in food systems.
Speaker
Daniel N. Warshawsky, Wright State University
Daniel N. Warshawsky is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, United States, where he teaches courses in geography and directs the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. His research examines food waste, food insecurity, and food banks in the world’s regions, with a primary focus on the cities of North America and Africa. In 2023, Daniel published a book with the University of Iowa Press called Food Waste, Food Insecurity, and the Globalization of Food Banks. Daniel earned his B.A. in geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2003), M.S. in geography from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (2006), and Ph.D. in geography from the University of Southern California (2011). Before coming to Wright State, Daniel was Assistant Professor (Teaching) and Director of Graduate Studies in the Spatial Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, where he taught courses in Geographic Information Science and Technology. In 2022, Daniel was named the Frederick A. White Distinguished Professor of Professional Service for his service to Wright State University and the broader Dayton community.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Navigating Food Insecurity: The Impact of Remittances in Kingston During COVID-19
2025-03-11 10:00 - 11:00 | ON
MiFOOD webinar no.21
This seminar presents data on a recent city-wide study examining the role of remittances in households in Kingston. Conducted as part of a survey for the project entitled “Food (in)accessibility among remittance receiving households in Kingston in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic”, the presentation sheds light on the frequency and use of remittance among those left behind. The study therefore contributes to existing literature examining family dependence on remittances and the links between food security and remittances. The discussion offers new insight into the role of remittances in crisis scenarios, in-kind versus cash remittances, and remitting of senders based in Jamaica. The presentation is especially timely given the recent deportation policy agenda in the main destination country of Jamaican migrants. The analysis points to the need for more updated information on remittance practices in small island developing states.
About the Speakers
Natalie Dietrich Jones is Senior Research Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at the University of the West Indies Mona campus. Her interests include geographies of the border, governance of migration, and intra-regional migration in the Caribbean. Natalie is Chair of the Migration and Development Cluster, an interdisciplinary group of researchers exploring contemporary issues concerning migration in the Caribbean and its diaspora. Natalie holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Development Policy and Management from the University of Manchester. She is currently undertaking a multi-sited project on the response to Venezuelan migration in small island developing states in the Southern Caribbean. She is also Principal Investigator for the Jamaica (Kingston) component of South-South Migration and Migrant Food Insecurity: Interactions, Impacts and Remedies (MiFood Project), a multi-city research initiative which is led by the Wilfrid Laurier University.
Dr. Stephen Johnson is an accomplished researcher with extensive experience in research methods and monitoring and evaluation methodologies. With a vast portfolio of projects and research publications focused on confronting developmental issues in Jamaica, the wider Caribbean, and the developing world, Dr. Johnson is committed to taking a pragmatic approach to development challenges. His expertise lies in advanced research methods, monitoring and evaluation, voting behaviour, user experience analysis, predictive analytics, harm reduction and behaviour modification campaigns. The British Commonwealth Scholar holds a Ph.D. in International Development from the University of Sussex, UK. He also obtained an MSc in Government and a BSc in International Relations from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Dr. Johnson currently holds the position of Research Fellow, where he delivers lectures on Research Methods and equips graduate students with the necessary skills to conduct rigorous research. Dr. Johnson also serves as the chair of the youth development research cluster, where he fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and drives research initiatives focused on youth development.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.

Greening Remittances for Food Security: Potentials and Challenges
2025-11-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 123, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
MiFOOD and IMRC Seminar
Migrant remittances are increasingly positioned as a potential game changer in the context of a significant, and indeed growing, climate finance gap which is a key obstacle to achieving decarbonization at the speed and scale required. Portrayed as stable, resilient and (almost) crisis-proof financial flows, there is emerging research which suggests that ‘green’ remittances can act as complementary finance enabling micro-level household adaptation and mitigation across a range of arenas including food security. This paper seeks to think through potentials and challenges arising from the intersection of remittances, food security and climate change paying particular attention to dietary transitions, urban gardening, and remittance fatigue. Based upon qualitative research with UK based Zimbabwean communities, it centres migrants as its vantage point. In so doing, the paper unpacks the multi-directional dimensions of remittances as flows and practices; of climate change challenges in places of emigration and immigration, and of dietary change which span from nutrition to nourishment.
About the Speaker
Kavita Datta is Professor of Development Geography and Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary University of London. Her research spans migration studies coalescing around issues of money, food and gender. She has a long-standing interest in remittance studies, the financial, emotional and infrastructural dimensions of these practices, and impacts upon migrant well-being. More recently, she has explored the interplay between food and migration in relation to food cultures and insecurities among migrant communities and food/ remittances in contexts of severe acute malnutrition. Her current collaborative project, Remitting for Resilience, is exploring the climate adaptation, migrant remittances and food insecurity nexus. She deploys gendered intersectional perspectives to better understand diverse aspects of transnational mobility. Her research is based in the UK, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Kavita’s books include Global Cities at Work: New Migrant Divisions of Labour and Migrants and their Money: Surviving Financial Exclusion in London. She is co-editor of the Elgar Companion on Migration and the Sustainable Development Goals.
MiFOOD is hosting a series of webinars on various topics about migration and food security that highlight the progress of the project. These webinars include conceptual discussion, empirical findings and policy analysis. Through these webinars, we intend to build a community with various stakeholders for knowledge sharing, deepen the understanding of the complex intersections between migration and food security, and facilitate the discussion of effective policy interventions. Follow the MiFOOD Twitter (Moving on Empty), Like the MiFOOD Facebook page to be notified about upcoming webinars.
