[csaa-forum] Media at Sydney presents: 'Civil Society Engagement: UN Food and Agriculture Organisation', Dr. Alana Mann

[Madeleine King]

Media at Sydney presents:



*Civil Society Engagement: the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation *



By Dr Alana Mann

The University of Sydney



Friday 12th September 2013





In 2008 the escalation of the world’s hungry to 870 million led to
proclamations of a new ‘global food crisis’. This seminar explores how
civil society actors including NGOs and social movements are establishing
new understandings of issues related to rural poverty and hunger and
communicating these in formal policy arenas. Based on interviews with
policy-makers at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome
and civil society groups in Geneva and Vienna, this research reveals
patterns of action in political arenas where non-state actors aim not only
to foster reconsideration of chronic problems in light of new frameworks
and ideologies, but to change the very culture of global governing
institutions. The study assesses the dynamics of change occurring in
transnational food policy arenas as a result of increased interaction
between civil society actors and the UN. It seeks to explain how this
interaction occurs and to assess whether or not it has contributed to
institutional change that better accommodates the views of non-state actors
on food and agriculture policy.





*Dr Alana Mann teaches in the Media and Communications Department within
the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. The focus of her research
is political communication, specifically the engagement of non-state actors
in international politics. She applies an interdisciplinary approach with a
strong focus on democracy, social justice and citizenship that is reflected
in her focus on the power relations between the media, governments,
institutions and civil society actors in the field of food security.
Her book *Power Shift: Global Activism in Food Politics*,* *scheduled for
publication by Palgrave McMillan in March 2014, has been described by
Professor Philip McMichael of Cornell University as 'a comprehensive,
multi-dimensional account of the global food system* and *its generation
from crisis of a burgeoning food sovereignty counter-movement' that
'details the organising trajectory and culture of global opposition through
cumulative networking and successful discursive reframing of what is at
stake in a food insecure and environmentally challenged world', offering a
'didactic and challenging template to agri-food scholars and activists
alike'. In her research and teaching Mann draws on grounded case studies of
agrarian movements in countries including Chile, Mexico and Spain to
theorise a diversity of counter-movement organising strategies and
political alliances. ***



*Details*

 Date: 12th September 2013

 Time: 3-5 pm

 Location: *Woolley Common Room, *Level 4, John Woolley Building
A20<http://sydney.edu.au/maps/campuses/?area=CAMDAR>,
Science Road, University of Sydney (Camperdown campus)



*RSVPs: *http://www.eventbrite.com.au/org/4662406979?s=17518129



or *t*o Madeleine King e: mkin5545 at uni.sydney.edu.au**



*Media at Sydney is presented by the Department of Media and Communications,
University of Sydney *

For more information contact Dr Fiona Martin

T: 0428391122 or 02 90365098

E: fiona.martin at sydney.edu.au

M: 0428 391 122



http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/
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