Abstract
Exposing food violences – hunger,malnutrition, and poisoning from environmentalmismanagement – requires policy action thatconfronts the structured invisibility of theseviolences. Along with the hidden deprivation offood is the physical and political isolation ofcritical knowledge on food violences and needs,and for policy strategies to address them. Iargue that efforts dedicated on behalf of ahuman right to food can benefit from thetheoretical analysis and activist work of theinternational Women's Rights are Human Rights(WRHR) movement. WRHR focuses on women andgirls; the food rights movement operates onbehalf of all people, with an emphasis on thepoor. Both attend to the protection of bodilyintegrity against physical and psychicviolences. Both cope with bodily violences thatare socially privatized and spatiallysegregated from public institutions of relief,that is, they are tacitly omitted from publicdiscourse and purview. Most typically, but notexclusively, these violences unfold in privatehousehold space. Both rights movements mustmobilize political rights to demand economicand social rights and security. I introduce theUnited Nations' early Declaration (1948) andCovenant (1966) language on the human right tofood and review problems of household accessand grassroots engagement that are ``writteninto'' this early documentation. An abbreviatedoverview of the WRHR movement describes how thepublic/private and economic/political rightsdichotomies have been critiqued andre-formulated. A case study set in Polandacross the transition from (more) communist to(more) capitalist political economies attemptsto illuminate the discussion through agrounded example.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Ash, T. G., The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1984).
Bellows, A. C., “Where Kitchen and Laboratory Meet: The ‘Tested Food for Silesia’ Program,” in D. Rocheleau, B. Thomas-Slater, and E. Wangari (eds.), Feminist Political Ecology: Global Perspectives and Local Insights (Routledge, London and New York, 1996), pp. 251–270.
Bellows, A. C., “Production and Protest: Claiming Food Security in Private and Public Spaces,” in M. DeKoven (ed.), Power, Practice, Agency: Working Papers from the ‘Women in the Public Sphere’ Seminar, 1997–1998 (Rutgers Institute for Research on Women and Rutgers Institute for Women's Leadership, New Brunswick, NJ, 1999), pp. 13–17.
Bellows, A. C., “Trouble With Urban Food, Environments, and Health: Local and Non-Local Aspects of Sustainability in Upper Silesia, Poland,” inM. Koc, R. MacRae, L. J. A. Mougeot, and J. Welsh (eds.), For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems (International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and The Centre for Studies in Food Security, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, 1999), pp. 131–135.
Bellows, A. C., “Balancing Diverse Needs: Risks and Pleasures of Urban Agriculture in Silesia, Poland,” TRIALOG: Zeitschrift fuer das Planen und Bauen in der Dritten Welt, Special Issue on Urban Agriculture (Darmstadt, Germany, June 2000), 18–23.
Bellows, A. C., “The Praxis of Food Work,” in M. DeKoven (ed.), Feminist Locations: Global/Local/Theory/Practice in the Twenty-First Century (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2001), pp. 229–256.
Bellows, A. C., “Case 3.6:Women Gardeners in Upper Silesia, Poland,” in J. Smit, J. Nasr, and A. Ratta (eds.), Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities (United Nations Development Program, New York, Forthcoming).
Bellows, A. C. and M.W. Hamm, “International Effects on and Inspiration for Community Food Security Policies and Practices in the US,” J. Critical Public Health (Forthcoming).
Buckingham, D. E., “Food Rights and Food Fights: A Preliminary Legal Analysis of the Results of the World Food Summit,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies XIX, Special Issue: The Quest for Food Security in the Twenty-First Century (1999), 209–236.
Bunch, C., “Transforming Human Rights From a Feminist Perspective,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 11–17.
Bunch, C. and N. Reilly, Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women's Human Rights (UNIFEM, New York, 1994).
Card, C. (ed.), On Feminist Ethics and Politics (University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 1999).
Carrillo, R., Violence Against Women: An Obstacle to Development (Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991).
Charlesworth, H., “Human Rights as Men's Rights,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 103–113.
Clement, G., Care, Autonomy, and Justice: Feminism and the Ethic of Care (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1996).
Cornell, D., “Gender, Sex, and Equivalent Rights,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 280–296.
Crosby, C, “Dealing with Difference,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 130–143.
Duncan, N. (ed.), BodySpace (Routledge, New York and London, 1996a).
Duncan, N. (ed.), “Renegotiating Gender and Sexuality in Public and Private Spaces,” in N. Duncan (ed.), BodySpace (Routledge, New York and London, 1996b), pp. 127–145.
Dzialkowcow, “Editorial,” Tylko w dzialkowcu 1 (1997), 14–15.
Eide, A., “Human Rights Requirement to Social and Economic Development: The Case of the Right to Food and Nutrition Rights,” in U. Kracht and M. Schulz (eds.), Food Security and Nutrition: The Global Challenge (St. Martin's Press, New York 1999), pp. 329–344.
Eide, W. B., “The Promotion of a Human Rights Perspective on Food Security: Highlights of an Evolving Process,” in E. Clay and O. Stokke (eds.), Food Aid and Human Security (Frank Cass Publishers, London and Portland, OR (USA), 2000), pp. 326–350.
Fenster, T. (ed.), Gender, Planning and Human Rights (Routledge, New York and London, 1999).
Fox-Genovese, E., “Difference, Diversity, and Divisions in an Agenda for the Women's Movement,” in G. Young and B. J. Dickerson (eds.), Color, Class, and Country: Experiences of Gender (Zed Books, London, 1994), pp. 232–248.
Fraser, N., Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989).
Fuszara, M., “Market Economy and Consumer Rights: The Impact on Women's Everyday Lives and Employment,” Economic and Industrial Democracy 15 (1994), 75–87.
Fuszara, M., “Women's Movements in Poland,” in J. W. Scott, C. Kaplan, and D. Keates (eds.), Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics (Routledge, New York and London, 1997), pp. 128–142.
Galtung, J., “The Basic Needs Approach,” in K. Lederer (ed.), Human Needs: A Contribution to the Current Debate (Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Haim, Cambridge: 1980), pp. 55–126. 276
Gilbert, M., “From the ‘Walk for Adequate Welfare’ to the ‘March for Our Lives’:Welfare Rights Organizing in the 1960s and 1990s,” Urban Geography 22(5) (2001), 440–456.
Graham, A. and J. Regulska, “Where Political Meets Women: Creating Local Space in Poland,” The Anthropology of East Europe Review 15(1) (1997a), 4–12.
Graham, A. and J. Regulska, “Expanding Political Space forWomen: An Analysis of Three Communities,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30(1) (1997b), 65–82.
Guinier, L., The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy (Free Press, and, Maxwell Macmillan International, New York, 1994).
Haraway, D. J., “Situated Knowledge: The Science Question in Feminism as a Site of Discourse on the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” (originally published, Feminist Studies 14(3) (1988), 575–599), revised and reprinted in D. J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (Free Association Books, London, 1991).
Haraway, D. J., Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan@_Meets_OncoMouse TM (Routledge, New York, 1997).
Harding, S., The Science Question in Feminism (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1986).
Hartsock, N. C. M., “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Sprecifically Feminist Historical Materialism,” in S. Harding and M. B. Hintikka (eds.), Discovering Reality (D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, 1983), pp. 283–310.
Harvey, D., Spaces of Hope (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000).
Held, V., “Liberalism and the Ethics of Care,” in C. Card (ed.), On Feminist Ethics and Politics (University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 1999), pp. 288–309.
Hilf, M., “The Right to Food in National and International Law,” in T. Oppermann and E.-U. Petersmann (eds.), Reforming the International Economic Order: German Legal Comments (Duncker and Humboldt, Berlin, 1987), pp. 125–146.
Hirschman, N., Rethinking Obligation: A Feminist Method for Political Theory (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1992).
Ishay, M. R. (ed.), The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches, and Documents From the Bible to the Present (Routledge, New York and London, 1997).
Jaggar, A. M., Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Rowman and Allanheld, Totowa NJ; The Harvester Press, Sussex, 1983).
Jones, J. P. III,H. J. Nast, and S. M. Roberts (eds.), Thresholds in Feminist Geography: Difference, Methodology, Representation (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, NY, 1997).
Jones, K., Compassionate Authority: Democracy and the Representation of Women (Routledge, New York, 1993).
Kaplan, T., “Female Consciousness and Collective Action: The Case of Barcelona, 1910–1918,” Signs 7(3) (1982), 545–566.
Kacprzak, H., J. Sokolowska, M. Staniszewska, J. Sliwka, and B. Migurska, “Tested and Organic Food for Residents of Densely Industrialized Urban Areas,” Report (Gliwice Chapter, Polish Ecological Club, Gliwice, Poland, 1996).
Kondracki, E. “Co niesie nowa ustawa o ogrodach dzialkowych,” [About the new garden allotments law] Dzialkowiec 5(369) (1981), 2+.
Kurczewski, J., The Resurrection of Rights in Poland (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993).
Lang, T., “Food Policy in the 21st Century: Can It Be Both Radical and Reasonable?” in M. Koc, R. MacRae, L. J.A. Mougeot, and J. Welsh (eds.), For Hunger-Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems (International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and The Centre for Studies in Food Security, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, 1999), pp. 216–224.
Lenkiewicz, W., “Wczoraj i Jutro,” [Yesterday and Today] Dzialkowiec 4 (1971), 51.
Lepak, K. J., Prelude to Solidarity: Poland and the Politics of the Gierek Regime (Columbia University Press, New York, 1988).
Lisowska, E., M. A. Knothe, and E. Wlodyka, “Women and Work,” in The Polish Committee of NGOs (eds.), Situation of Women in Poland [English Version, Polish Nongovernmental organizations’ report for the United Nations Women's Summit in Beijing] (Polish Committee of NGOs, Warsaw, 1995), pp. 20–24.
Locke, J., Two Treatises of Government (Introduction by W. S. Carpenter) (Dent, London; Dutton, New York, 1975).
Locke, J., Some Thoughts Concerning Education (edited with introduction, notes, and critical apparatus, J. W. Yolton and J. S. Yolton) (Clarendon Press, Oxford; Oxford University Press, New York, 1989).
MacKinnon, C., “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7(3) (1982), 515–544.
Marston, S. A., “The Social Construction of Scale,” Progress in Human Geography 24(2) (2000), 219–242.
Mittal, A. and P. Rosset (eds.), America Needs Human Rights (Food First Books, Oakland, CA, 1999).
Nielsen, J. M., “Introduction,” in J. M. Nielsen (ed.), Feminist Research Methods: Exemplary Readings in the Social Sciences (Westview Press, Boulder, 1990), p. 37.
O'Boyle, E. J., “Human Physical Need: A Concept That is Both Absolute and Relative,” in J. B. Davis and E. J. O'Boyle (eds.), Social Economics of Human Material Need (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1994a), pp. 47–81.
O'Boyle, E. J., “The Need for Work as Such: Self-expression and Belonging,” in J. B. Davis and E. J. O'Boyle (eds.), Social Economics of Human Material Need (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1994b), pp. 116–142.
Papanek, H., “False Specialization and the Purdah of Scholarship: A Review Article,” Journal of Asian Studies 44(1) (1984), 127–148.
Papanek, H., “To Each Less Than She Needs, From Each More Than She Can Do: Allocations, Entitlements, and Value,” in I. Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1990), pp. 162–181.
Pateman, C., The Sexual Contract (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1988).
Peters, J. and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995).
Peterson, D. J., Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction (Westview Press, Boulder, 1993).
Polski Zwiazek Dzialkowcow, “Open Letter from Opole PZD Members,” Biuletyn-Polski Zwiazek Dzialkowcow (PZD) 60(8) (1995), 23.
Ramphele, M., “Do Women Help Perpetuate Sexism? A Bird's Eye View from South Africa,” Africa Today 37(1) (1990), 7–18.
Regulska, J., “Transition to Local Democracy: Do Polish Women Have a Chance?” in M. Rueschemeyer (ed.), Women in the Politics of Postcommunist Eastern Europe (M. E. Sharpe Inc., Armonk, NY and London, 1994), pp. 35–62.
Regulska, J., “The Political and itsMeaning forWomen's Transitional Political in Poland,” in J. Pickles and A. Smith (eds.), Theorizing Transition: The Political Economy of Change in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, New York and London, 1998), pp. 309–329.
Riches, G., “Reaffirming the Right to Food in Canada: The Role of Community-based Food Security,” in M. Koc, R. MacRae, L. J. A. Mougeot, and J. Welsh (eds.), For Hunger Proof Cities: Sustainable Urban Food Systems (International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and The Centre for Studies in Food Security, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, 1999), pp. 203–215.
Rose, W. J., The Drama of Upper Silesia (Stephen Daye Press, Brattleboro, VT, 1935).
Schuler, M., Freedom From Violence: Women's Strategies From Around the World (UNIFEM, New York, 1992).
Sen, A., Resources, Values and Development (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984).
Sen, A., Commodities and Capabilities (Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam, 1985).
Sen, A., “Gender and Cooperative Conflicts,” in I. Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1990), pp. 123–149.
Shaw, D. J., The UN World Food Programme and the Development of Food Aid (Palgrave, Houndmills, UK and New York, 2001).
Simmons, A. J., The Lockean Theory of Rights (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1994).
Smith, N., “Homeless/Global: Scaling Places,” inJ. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, and L. Tickner (eds.), Mapping the Future: Local Culture, Global Change (Routledge, London and New York, 1993), pp. 87–119.
Sphere Project, The, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response (Oxfam Publishing Publishing, Oxford, 2000).
Staeheli, L. A. and A. Thompson, “Citizenship, Community, and Struggles for Public Space,” Professional Geographer 49 (February 1997), 28–38.
Sullivan, D., “The Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 126–134.
Szymanski, L., Candle for Poland: 469 Days of Solidarity (The Borgo Press, San Bernardino, CA, 1982).
Tomasevski, Katarina, Women and Human Rights (Zed Books, United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service and London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1993).
Toro, M. S., “Popularizing Women's Human Rights at the Local Level: A Grassroots Methodology for Setting the International Agenda,” in J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (Routledge, New York and London, 1995), pp. 189–194.
Tronto, J., “Women and Caring:What Can Feminists Learn About Morality from Caring?” in M. A. Jagger and S. R. Bordo (eds.), Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions on Being and Knowing (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1989) pp. 172–188.
United Nations Centre for Human Rights, Right to Adequate Food as a Human Right (United Nations, New York, 1989).
Van Esterik, P., “Right to Food; Right to Feed; Right to be Fed: The Intersection of Women's Rights and the Right to Food,” Agriculture and Human Values 16(2) (1999), 225–232.
Walton, J. and D. Seddon, Free Markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment (Blackwell, Cambridge, USA and Oxford, UK, 1994).
Watson, P., “The Rise of Masculinism in Eastern Europe,” New Left Review 198 (March/ April 1993), 71–82.
Watson, P., “Civil Society and the Politics of Difference in Eastern Europe,” in J.W. Scott, C. Kaplan, and D. Keates (eds.), Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics (Routledge, New York and London, 1997), pp. 21–29.
Whitehead, A., “Food Symbolism, Gender Power and the Family,” in B. Harriss-White and Sir R. Hoffenberg, Food: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Blackwell, Cambridge, USA and Oxford, UK, 1994), pp. 116–129.
Young, I. M., Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990).
Young, I. M., “Public Address As a Sign of Political Inclusion,” in C. Card (ed.), On Feminist Ethics and Politics (University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 1999), pp. 103–115.
Zinn, M. B. and B. T. Dill, “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism,” in B. J. Balliet and P. McDaniel (eds.), Women, Culture and Society (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., Dubuque, Iowa, 1998), pp. 95–102.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bellows, A.C. Exposing violences: Using women's human rights theory to reconceptualize food rights. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16, 249–279 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023662211010
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023662211010