This session is open for all to attend.
Dr. Charumita Vasudev will be leading an open discussion on the reading by Ajantha Subramanian called ‘Meritocracy and Democracy: Indian Reservations and the Politics of Caste’.
This article talks about India’s move towards an embrace of caste quotas, or reservations, as a necessary mechanism of recompense and redistribution. The author takes up the tensions between different approaches to democracy and their implications for addressing historical inequalities.
Dr. Swayamshree Mishra will be leading an open discussion on the reading by Professor Janaki Abraham called ‘What will the neighbours say?’: Legitimacy, Social Control and the Sociocultural Influence of Neighbourhoods in India.
This article talks about the importance and influence of neighbourhood on lives of the people, their behaviour and how it shapes their preferences in Indian context, while also highlighting how gender is produced in these settings. This article argues that the narrative of neighbourhood is as vital as caste, class, ethnicity or religion.
In this Project Workshop, the research team led by Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann and supported by Drs. Ankita Rathi, Charumita Vasudev, and Swayamshree Mishra will interact with key stakeholders of the project. The workshop will include the following:
In the 5th episode of our “Expert Interview Series”, Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures project, speaks to Mr V R Raman, an expert on various social development systems and policies, especially in relation to the Indian subcontinent. He completed his post-graduate studies in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and his graduate studies in English language and literature at the University of Calicut, Kerala, India. Over the last three decades, Mr. Raman has worked closely with most of the state-led flagship social development missions in India, such as the National Literacy Mission, National Health Mission, Swachh Bharat (Sanitation) Mission, Jal Jeevan (Drinking Water) Mission and Poshan Abhiyan (Nutrition Mission). In addition, he is a co-founder and leader of some of the noted and mass-scale community health and nutrition programs and a few important state-civil society partnership organisations. Through his work, Mr Raman has explored gender, physical and social vulnerabilities and how they can be alleviated to build a human rights and dignity-based equitable society. He is currently the National Convenor of the Public Health Resource Network in India and is associated with several organisations and people’s campaigns.
In this interview, Mr. Raman identifies the various interconnected dimensions of food insecurity in India. Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann and Mr Raman discuss the following issues that have a direct bearing on food insecurity in India:
• The links between water and sanitation with food insecurity and malnourishment,
• The structural challenges farmers are facing,
• The inadequacy and problems of market-based solutions in addressing the structural challenges of hunger and food insecurity,
• The challenges of inflation and price hikes and their impact on the lives of the masses,
• How much state-led schemes are able to address food insecurity,
• The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on food security,
• The need to move away from a market-centric economic model to a people-centric economy and,
• The need to refine data collection and monitoring practices to generate research geared toward identifying and alleviating food insecurity.
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Dr Alula Pankhurst is a social anthropologist, and the Country Director for Young Lives Ethiopia since 2009. His role involves coordinating Young Lives research in Ethiopia and leading on topics including urban relocation, child work, early marriage and violence against children. In addition, he has been involved in policy dialogue on child marriage, FGM, and early childhood and youth development. Dr Pankhurst is a founding member of the Child Research and Practice Forum, a Board member of the Ethiopia Heritage Trust, a former board member of the Ethiopian Society of Sociologists, Social Workers and Anthropologists, and the former Board Chair of the Forum for Social Studies. He also serves on the Independent Council of Economic Advisors to the Ethiopian government and the Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of Addis Ababa University.
In this interview with Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, the Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures Project, Dr Pankhurst offers an empirically grounded account of recent food insecurity trends in Ethiopia. Prof. Pankhurst highlights how the climate crisis has accelerated food insecurity. Dr Pankhurst offers an insightful description of the complexity of food insecurity in Ethiopia and how it is cumulatively worsened by factors such as conflict, drought, changes in land holding, and global developments, most recently including the ongoing war in Ukraine. Dr Pankhurst also discusses some recent findings from his research, such as the link between anxiety and mental distress with food insecurity among households. Dr Pankhurst’s future research entails studying the trends in and consequences of intergenerational malnutrition in Ethiopia and understanding regional variations of food insecurity and their links to larger structural issues such as drought, pests (such as locust infestations), land holding patterns and mental health.
In the fourth episode of our “Expert Interview Series”, Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, the Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures Project, speaks to Dr Vuong Ngoc Thuy, an expert on issues of food insecurity in Vietnam. Dr Vuong is a researcher/lecturer at the Institute of Ho Chi Minh City Public Health. Her research focuses on food insecurity and nutrition and food-borne and water-borne diseases. She has experience working with vulnerable sub-populations, especially the ethnic minority groups, the elderly and children. Dr Vuong is making efforts to shape policies to improve food security and nutrition in Vietnam for vulnerable sub-populations by providing accurate and reliable scientific evidence for policymakers.
In this interview, Dr Vuong offers her thoughts on food security in Vietnam in the larger context of the socio-economic structures and challenges the country will face in the short and long term. Dr Vuong highlights the structural similarities that Vietnam shares with other Low- and Middle-income Countries (LMICs) and how they are connected to global food insecurity. She points out that the biggest challenge Vietnam faces on the food security front is that of agricultural production and how factors such as climate variability, lack of fresh water, overdependence on chemical fertilisers and the high price of agricultural inputs affect food production. Dr Vuong also highlights how the CoVID-19 pandemic disrupted the food system, thus affecting food security and diet diversity for the Vietnamese population. Dr Vuong Ngoc also brings the disproportionate impact the pandemic had on the food security of vulnerable groups such as disabled people, the elderly, daily wage labourers, children, and pregnant women to the centre of the conversation.
Dr Vuong also talks about the measures that can be taken to keep the crisis from worsening and improve the country’s food security. Dr Vuong highlights the potential “climate-smart agriculture” as a solution holds for Vietnam in addressing the problem of food insecurity as it can help produce affordable and healthy foods for the people and, at the same time, rehabilitate the environment. Dr Vuong stresses the point that improving the food distribution mechanisms to reduce inequity in the food system and food waste must be a central objective for any policy that aims to address food insecurity.
Department: Sociology
Salary: £28,756 to £33,309
Closing Date: Sunday 17 July 2022
Interview Date: 4th – 5th August 2022 [The interview will be conducted remotely]
Reference: 0549-22
You will join a mixed-methods team to work on primary data collection in India and data analysis on Dr. Fledderjohann’s project, which focuses on food insecurity in India, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Peru. In your first months on the project, you will work with Dr. Fledderjohann, project co-investigator Dr. Sukumar Vellakkal (IIT Kanpur), and two other qualitative postdocs to collect data on food insecurity and family life in Uttar Pradesh and Goa. You will then return to Lancaster to join the UK-based team, where you will work on data analysis and project outputs stemming from this work. In the final months of the project, you will again travel to India, where you will collect additional primary data and have an opportunity to contribute to project workshops and stakeholder events. There will be many opportunities for professional development including, in consultation with Dr. Fledderjohann, taking a leading role in research outputs and further funding bids, contributing to research design, presenting work at conferences, and networking with international stakeholders and collaborators.
You will join us on an indefinite contract however, the role remains contingent on external funding which, at this time is due to come to an end on 21/10/2024.
In conjunction with the standard application process, please upload a CV and also a writing sample of either a) your best published work or b) single thesis chapter (in the latter case, 30 pages maximum inclusive of references) with your application.
The position is available from 20/10/2022.
You can learn more about the project here
If you would like further information and an opportunity to discuss the role, please contact: Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann at foodequity@lancaster.ac.uk
We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.
Please consult the Job Description and Person Specification for further details on job expectations and skills required before applying. All applications must be submitted online via Lancaster University’s online application portal here
Please note: The salary range listed reflects that Lancaster University offers annual salary increases. Per university policy, appointments to new posts are made at the bottom of the range listed, and progression can be made through the increments year-by-year.
