QUARTERLY THEMES
Food is indispensable to our lives, but the labour it takes is often undervalued, and largely invisible. Due to how food systems are organised, our understanding of where this work really occurs, and the precarious conditions it takes place under, are often obscured in public imagination.
We sought to address some of these issues with Local Food Club members through our first quarterly theme Supporting your Food Producers; but for the second quarter, we want to understand this intersection in more nuanced ways. For example, what does food labour actually involve? How is it valued within present systems? And what does that reveal about wider social relations, processes, and structures?
In India, this obfuscation can be seen everywhere. Demands for formal recognition of domestic labour are met with indifference in the country’s highest courts; labour datasets fail to account for the multifaceted realities of gig workers; migrant women running Delhi’s informal economy are not seen as workers even by themselves—the list is endless.
By bringing this conversation to Local Food Clubs across 20+ cities, we want to collectively interrogate what food labour looks like across diverse contexts, who sustains it, and how these relations can be more conscious and meaningful.
Join the conversation this quarter to know more about:
Our quarterly theme is spread across three months, where we start by exploring forms of labour closest to daily life, then gradually move to broader contexts. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect:
April: Labour Closest to Everyday Life: Engaging with systems and relations closest to us: homes, kitchens, the eating spaces we frequent.
May: Labour across Cities and Towns: Exploring how food is made accessible and available across urban and semi-urban spaces: from markets, transportation, and delivery.
June: Labour beyond Urban Consumption: Understanding how food production occurs at source, including farmlands, fisheries, or foraging spaces.
Know more about the questions we’re asking this quarter, and the narratives we’re trying to foreground:
22-year-old Ratish pushes vallams (fishing boats) back into the sea, and moors them ashore. He is an important intermediary, yet oft-overlooked in the relay between ocean and land.
Outdoor labourers are at extreme risk from rising temperatures. Learn more about the toll it takes on agricultural workers, especially women; and how they avoid some of its worst impacts.
Demand from industries like the fishmeal fish oil (FMFO) sector is making Karal Meen, one of the most affordable species of fish along the east coast of India, more expensive for locals.
Archivist Farah Yameen has spent countless hours in Delhi’s mandis. In one such visit, she examines her own shifting identities in the field, and how we cultivate relationships that are meaningful, if not equal.
Discover more stories on food and labour in our reading list.
Meet like-minded members over shared meals and discuss prompts surrounding food and labour in small, intimate groups.
City-wide conversations on Whatsapp that engage with food labour in local contexts.
Discussions and Reading Circles held online with experts from the field that blends learning and conversation.
Market visits and neighbourhood walks that explore urban landscapes through the lens of local food cultures.
Online screening sessions that explore narratives surrounding food labour in engaging ways.
By the end of the quarter, we hope you leave with a sharper perception of food systems, a more grounded understanding of what labour means within it, and recognise social and systemic inequities more clearly.
Sign up for the Local Food Club to be part of this dialogue.
Want to help us behind the scenes? Here are all the ways you can get involved.