The Taboo of Hunger and the Policies of Food Security: Discussions about Brazil and the U.S.

Walter Belik and Nancy-Scheper Hughes

Roundtable Discussion

March 19, 2019 

The Taboo of Hunger and the Policies of Food Security: With Walter Belik and Nancy-Scheper Hughes

Event Description

Despite the fact that the first United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal is the eradication of hunger and extreme poverty, this silent problem has not yet been resolved. Mentions of hunger and food insecurity are still present in media all over the world. This roundtable discussion will present food security policies in Brazil and their outcomes in the fight against hunger and food insecurity. The presenters will also address how hunger is constructed as a taboo and the ways in which it impacts the lives of people in the Global South and the United States.

Speakers

Walter Belik is a professor at the Institute of Economics at Unicamp, Brazil. His career is focused on eradicating food insecurity in Latin America. He was one of the key coordinators of the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) Project and an advisor to the UN Committee on World Food Security.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is an activist and engaged anthropologist who has worked around the world, including Brazil. She is a professor emerita of Medical Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

The event will be mediated by Lis Furlani Blanco, visiting scholar in the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley and graduate student at Unicamp, Brazil.