Urban food governance's potential for a gender-just food transition: preliminary results from fieldwork in Milan and Barcelona

Urban areas are increasingly adopting the tool of urban food policies (UFPs) to address food-related challenges, especially for a sustainable transition of their food systems. Indeed, food systems were assessed to have a great environmental impact, and cities are recognized as privileged actors to address this challenge. More recently, the problem of justice in such transition was raised. One dimension of vulnerability proven to crosscut all food system stages, and to increase exposure to climate change effects, is gender. However, literature on just food transition and UFPs does not seem to always consider this dimension of potential vulnerability. This paper draws on previous work I conducted that preliminarily assessed the lack of attention to gender differences in a relevant selection of UFPs demonstrating that, although theory seems to prove its relevance, a gender mainstreaming approach is still widely lacking from policy practice and, rather, some policies risk reinforcing existing gender stereotypes related to the food system, for example by only paying specific attention to women’s needs in relation to their role of mothers. The paper also presents some preliminary results of the fieldwork investigating how relevant actors – both institutional and from civil organizations – in Milan and Barcelona understand gender differences in food systems and the potentialities that a collaboration between top-down and bottom-up initiatives bring about for a more gender equal urban food system. The contribution aims, firstly, at consolidating the idea that food governance should inherently take gender differences into consideration, as well as exploring whether and how different actors in two pioneering cities in the context of Southern Europe are currently understanding these differences compared to what literature deems relevant. Through this exploration, the study is expected to broaden the existing knowledge on the potential of urban governance to contribute not only to a more environmentally sustainable food system, but at the same time to a more gender equal one, thus guaranteeing a more gender-just food transition. The paper ends by describing the expected final results of the study and further research suggestions about potentially relevant aspects that have come up during fieldwork and would be worthy of a deeper exploration.