Event overview
Better decisions for food security? Critical reflections on the study of decision-making in development economics
Abstract:
Food policy in countries in the Global South tends to focus on home-produced food as well as education of farmers and consumers. Decisions on what crops to grow and what food to eat are considered to be central to attain improved food security and nutrition. This approach fits well with the behavioural turn in development policy, which is considered to have opened up new avenues for understanding and shaping individual decision-making. Nevertheless, food practice entails a complex set of decisions that are not fully understood. Drawing on a study of food consumption among schoolchildren in urban Ghana, we flesh out critical aspects of food decision-making and question the rationale for focussing on decisions. We make two key findings. First, the decision-making process is composed of different aspects and phases, which involve a range of people to varied extents. For example, the distinction between children’s and mothers’ decisions is more blurred than often assumed. Second, decisions need to be seen as emerging from a broader context of food provisioning. Children face several constraints in making knowledge-based decisions on food as means of transportation constrain food acquisition practices, food advertisement influences taste, and, importantly, the food industry appropriates and shapes nutrition narratives. The food environment may constrain decisions to a point it may be misleading to refer to practice as being based on decision.
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Sara Stevano is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England. She has a background in development economics and political economy and was trained at SOAS University of London, where she completed my MSc in Development Economics (2010) and PhD in Economics (2014). Her research interests include feminist political economy and gender analysis, agrarian change, the political economy of food/nutrition and labour markets. She take an interdisciplinary approach in her research, exploring the use of mixed methods in economic research and the synergies between political economy and anthropology. Her work focuses on Africa (Mozambique and Ghana in particular).
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Feb 2018 | 4:30pm - 6:00pm |
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