1. Connecting people with food policy
CITY FOOD SYMPOSIUM 2018 Generously supported by the Worshipful Company of Cooks
Connecting people with food policy
#CityFoodSym

2. #CityFoodSym Scene setting
Professor Corinna Hawkes, Director, Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London
#CityFoodSym

3. What will we be doing today?
Exploring how gathering and translating evidence of lived experience of food-related problems can help make food policy more effective and equitable in delivering its ultimate goals.
People are healthy
People have the economic opportunities & assets to live decent lives
People live in nurturing & stable societies
Planet is protected

4. What do we mean by “lived experience”?
Lived experience is not “right” or “wrong,” “correct” or “incorrect” but reflects how people experience their lives. It provides evidence not available from other sources, and a starting point for exploring systemic issues that lie beneath people’s perspective on their own realities
“Lived experience”
The way that people experience food-related challenges - and the policies/actions designed to address them - in their everyday lives
Emerges from the reality of how people experience the circumstances that shape their everyday lives & how they respond
A form of knowledge - 1st hand knowledge of experiencing a problem, distinct from external “expert” knowledge
But not just a quantifiable “reality” – it also reflects identity, feelings, frailty –powerlessness, anger, shame, prejudice, vulnerability, exclusion, desire, hopefulness may not be “rational” but are a human reality that influence how we experience our circumstances

5. Evidence of “lived experience”
How do we gather evidence of lived experience?
Listening to voices of people with lived experiences
Involving people - can also involve co-production of solutions, decision- making, and participatory governance (but not necessarily)
How do we translate this evidence into action?
Using what is learned to inform & design policies and actions
Empowering people with lived experience to play a role in developing and demanding action

6. Why focus on “lived experience” for CityFoodSym?
Outcome of City Food Symposium 2016
“There was consensus around the idea that a greater range of people should be involved in food policy, and their experiences heard in their own words, in particular those who are often marginalised”

7. But why? ….and it’s actually kinda a hard policy and political project
… because the world is faced with Brexit, food poverty, malnutrition, climate change, land and water degradation, slavery in the food system, ravaged communities, humanitarian disasters, food borne disease, overweight/obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, economic precariousness, indecent work etc etc
… when the world is faced with Brexit, food poverty, malnutrition, climate change, land and water degradation, slavery in the food system, ravaged communities, humanitarian disasters, food borne disease, overweight/obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, economic precariousness, indecent work etc etc
….and it’s actually kinda a hard policy and political project
….isn’t it kinda touchy-feely fluffy stuff?

8. Why is it potentially transformative? The theory ...
Because policies and actions that take account of how problems are experienced are more likely to be effective & equitable in tackling the problem, and more likely to be put into practice

9. Understand the problem from the perspective of the people who experience it
Explore the systemic causes that shape that experience
Policy/actions designed to take lived realities into account
Policies and actions more likely to work (equitably) and be imple- mented
Listen
Policies/actions that beneficiaries buy into
People who experience the problem play more of a role in identifying/ calling for solutions
Increased demand for action
Empower and emancipate unheard/overlooked voices
Increased political acceptability

10. Risk 1 – Confusion
“Experience” or “opinion”?
“Listening” or “participation”?
“Reality” or “reality”?

11. Risk 2 – Excessive “elevation”
Lived experience as the only way to understand a problem
vs one form of knowledge
People with lived experience as the only people who can speak about a problem
vs one legitimate and needed voice

12. Risk 3 – Representation & Appropriation
People experience problems in different ways, so
How do we interpret/translate that?
Who speaks?
Who do we (choose) to listen to (the people we agree with)?

13. Risk 4 – Stymying of policy/action
“We have to ‘get real’”
“Let’s get them to change their behaviour”
“Do it by yourself”
“It’s too complicated”

14. Risk 5 - Tokenism
Provide a forum for listening – and then fail to translate it into policy/action
Listen – and then only hear the voices agreed with to provide legitimacy for existing positions

15. … leads to questions for exploration
Gathering evidence
How to effectively gather evidence for research, advocacy, policy?
What type of evidence does it provide – strengths and limitations?
Translating evidence
How to meaningfully translate lived experiences into policy and action?
If people become empowered, how does that translate into change?
Impact
What evidence it HAS actually made policies more effective and equitable?
What has been learned bout how to make it work better?

16. #CityFoodSym How the day will flow
How can we listen to the evidence of experience (methods)
First set of short talks including problems across the system and a wide range of methods from researchers, NGOs and government, national, international
How can this listening also involve and empower people?
Second set of short talks
How gathering evidence of lived experience can be used to meaningfully improve decision-making in the future
Workshops
What have we learned through the day
Summing up
#CityFoodSym

17. Short talks: questions
Why gather evidence of lived experiences (motivation)?
How (method)?
What happens with the evidence?
What difference did/could it make?
What were key learnings?
#CityFoodSym