The nutritional turn towards crisis: a critical perspective

ABSTRACT

With concerns about food systems growing due to environmental change and the abrupt disruption of trade relations following the dual crises of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it has become increasingly common for global development agendas to include discussions, programmes, initiatives, and policy proscriptions about the risks of malnutrition. Yet, there remains limited insight into how securitising nutrition in particular influences the politics of food insecurity more broadly. Therefore, we aim to develop a critical perspective of ‘nutritional crisis’. In doing so, we draw from critical security studies to advance an interpretation of the nutritional turn that takes into account three key dynamics: (1) the performativity of nutritional crisis discourses (2) the political-economic context in which they are embedded (3) alternative notions of nutrition, security, and crisis among resistance movements. We apply this perspective to a case in point concerning food insecurity in Guatemala – a country that remains the intense focus of nutritional policies at the global level and simultaneously a site of struggle and resistance for local and transnational food justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Nutrition
• crisis
• food security
• discourse

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers at Critical Studies on Security for their immensely helpful suggestions that enabled us to both access and develop the key argument underlying our shared ideas and commitments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julianne Liebenguth

Julianne Liebenguth is an Assistant Professor at Elon University. Her research focuses on the power dynamics of global environmental issues. She is particularly interested in exploring the link between discourse, practice, and transformation.

Gabriella Gricius

Gabriella Gricius is a PhD Candidate at Colorado State University with subfields of Environmental Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Politics. She is also a Research Fellow at the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network. Her research focuses on Arctic security and the role of expertise in policymaking.