Members of the food politics and cultures project team are in Rome for the 2017 Seventh International Conference on Food Studies. This conference takes place in the same month as World Food Day. October in Rome is the month of food fairs and festivals including the Giuseppe Arcimboldo exhibition at the Palazzo Barberini that is running from 19 October 2017 – 11 February 2018.

The FPC team members submitted abstracts focusing on the following three themes (1) Food production and sustainability; (2) Food, Nutrition, and Health; (3) Food Politics, Policies and Cultures. The conference runs over 2 days, 26^th to 27^th October and we will attend the pre-conference activity of the 25^th at Gustolab International. The following are the titles of our abstracts accepted for the conference:

 

Foodscapes, Hybrid Identities and Revolutionary Food Systems from the Margins in Bellville, Cape Town

Politicizing Public Eating Spaces: The South African Spur Family Restaurant Franchise

Food Sovereignty and Food Justice Discourses from the Perspective of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Western Cape, South Africa

Fish as Food: Beyond Sustenance, Livelihoods and Climate Change

Regulating Food Waste in the City: Problematising Municipal Organic Recycling Initiatives in Cape Town, South Africa

Food Studies and the Pitfalls of Interdisciplinarity

This is the first time for project members to attend an international conference as a group but also a first for most to experience a non-African country and travel to Europe.