Doctoral student Oguz Aslihan

Leave No One Behind: A Feminist Participatory Ethnography On Immigrants’ Food Practices For Just Transitions

Tieteellinen tutkimus / siihen pohjautuva työ | Nelivuotinen

Leave No One Behind explores just food system transitions focusing on the immigrants. At its core, it aims to bring immigrants' perspectives, which are largely lacking at the moment, to the food system research in Finland by looking at their food practices using experimental methods. It aims to make societal, theoretical and methodological contributions. Its most significant contribution is to bring multiple voices to the food system discourse, making invisible stakeholders visible and the transition to a sustainable food system in Finland just and inclusive. The new ethnographic and participatory data emerging from immigrant food practices will show new intervention possibilities with a focus on supporting the agency of the migrants. Refrigerator studies, shop-along, food diaries and participatory data analysis are creative new methodologies that address structural inequality and the slow violence of excluding immigrant perspectives on sustainable food systems. These methodologies, combined with the feminist systems theory principles such as valuing voices from the margins and working closely with communities, aim to bring a food system perspective to peace and conflict studies. The research participants will be from Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi communities in Helsinki and Tampere. The Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry report 2017 indicates an alarming lack of nutrition information on immigrants. Existing research on just food system transitions describes immigrants as an invisible group in food policies and discourses in Finland and emphasises the need to investigate this. This lack of representation may cause marginalisation for immigrants in everyday life and put Finland as a peaceful society in question, indicating the need for such perspectives in peace research. As existing research on food system issues shows, the social injustices in the food system, such as inequality and racism, are examples of slow violence – that this study will investigate.