The Berkeley Food Institute (BFI) Graduate Student Council presents the 1st Annual Food Systems Conference—“Biomigrations: Food Sovereignty, Security, and Justice in the Americas”

April 2-3, 2021
Virtual Conference on Zoom

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021 AT 11:59 PM (PACIFIC TIME)
ALL APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED ONLINE

The Berkeley Food Institute (BFI) Graduate Student Council is excited to invite graduate student scholars, community members, and artists to submit proposal abstracts of speeches, scholarly papers, or in-progress film/mixed media works to discuss at our first annual Food Systems Conference, titled “Biomigrations: Food Sovereignty, Security, and Justice in the Americas”.
*All presentations will be followed by a Q&A section*

Biomigrations, as Jesus Nazario generally defines it, is a way to reconsider notions of Life and Movement. It is a way to explore one's community, self, and spirit(s) through Indigenous rooting, refusal, and violence. Biomigrations is premised on the idea that we, humans, need to know where we have come from (Indigenous rooting), how we have arrived at such becoming (refusal), and how we are enacting structural pain(s) to humans and non-humans through our Being (violence). How people have moved across time and space, and continue to do so, are not without their held and unraveling consequences. The Biomigrations conference, thus, helps center how these movements have occurred across societal structures such as race, gender, and class.

How has access to nutritious and fresh foods changed through migrations throughout North, Central, and South American regions? How has Black and Indigenous ownership of farmland shifted across generations in the Americas? How are women and queer people shaping Food Justice movements across the American continent?

Such questions are examples of what may be discussed and answered during the Biomigrations conference. However, the conference’s main goal will be to collaboratively connect American scholars, community members, and artists through the lenses of Food Sovereignty, Food Security, and Food Justice. Additionally, we welcome all proposals with specific focus on Indigenous and Black knowledge, people, and lands.

Example topics include, but are not limited to:

• Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
• Community food systems
• Land rematriation
• Food and nutrition policy
• Cooperatives
• Agroecology
• Feminist food justice
• Biotechnology
• Transnational foodways
• Sustainable development
• Undocumented farmworker labor
• Non-human centered research
• Food recovery
• Regenerative agriculture

Deadline for All Proposal Abstract Submissions:
Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time)

Submission Information

We invite abstracts of in-progress or completed speeches, scholarly papers, or film/mixed media works. This conference is interdisciplinary and transnational, and we encourage submissions from all fields of study.

Graduate or Undergraduate students, community members, independent scholars, and artists from any institution or organization are eligible to submit applications.

Due to the virtual format registration for the Biomigrations conference, the event is free to all participants and attendees.

Full details—including proposal length requirements and additional specifications—are available on our google form, found below.

Apply by February 21, 2021: https://forms.gle/rQQFh9UATebwBNDF9

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]