Hungry for Peace invites readers into the remarkable world of food as an active agent of conflict and connection. From community kitchens to food festivals and shared meals around tables, Elaine Mei Lien Pratley shows how food shapes tensions, sparks understanding and produces everyday peace. Through participatory fieldwork with young people in Melbourne, Australia, ordinary acts – eating consciously, sampling unfamiliar cuisines and reducing food waste – emerge as powerful, agentic gestures that negotiate conflict, build trust and nurture connection.
Blending feminist peace studies, food research and posthumanist theory, the book reveals how more-than-human actors – smells, ingredients, tables and atmospheres – participate directly in peace and conflict. It shows food practices not as background, but as lively collaborators in peacebuilding, offering new ways to understand, navigate, and shape conflict in our interconnected, entangled world.
Explores how everyday food practices actively shape conflict and cultivate peace.
Arvustused
This is an important and sophisticated book that shows how food practices connect with multiple issues of peace and conflict. It shows that food is much more than a basic need and intersects with identity, culture and power. Elaine Pratleys engaging book allows us to see food as a peacebuilding agent. -- Roger Mac Ginty, Durham University
Introduction: Food, Peace and Posthumanism
PART I: SETTING THE SCENE: POLITICS OF FOOD
Chapter 1: Food As Instrument of Peace and Conflict
Chapter 2: Food as Posthumanist Peacebuilding
Chapter 3: Food As Method
PART II: FOOD AS EVERYDAY PEACEBUILDING
Chapter 4: The More-Than-Human Peacebuilder
Chapter 5: Transcorporeal Bodies as Food Peacebuilders
Chapter 6: Posthumanist Dialogues during a Pandemic
Chapter 7: Animal Food Peacebuilding
Chapter 8: Food-Care as Peacebuilding
Conclusion: A Food Peace Research Agenda
Dr Elaine Mei Lien Pratley is a Malaysian peace practitioner and Rotary Peace Fellow at The University of Melbourne, Australia, working with themes related to culture, food, and youth peacebuilding. She is Co-Chair of the Global Peace Conference, Founder of Peace Inc., and advisor to Women Peace Makers, Cambodia.
