Elise Wach is a Research Advisor within the Resource Politics and Environmental Change research cluster. She seeks to contribute to creating food systems which are ecologically regenerative, socially equitable and democratic. Working as both a researcher and a food producer, she is a ‘critical participant’ of the agroecology and food sovereignty social movements.
Elise uses political ecology and participatory approaches in her research. One strand of her work seeks to shed light on the specific dynamics of capitalism that cause ecological degradation and social inequities, particularly but not limited to racialised, gendered and class-based inequities in farming and food systems. The other strand of her work is to identify practical pathways away from exploitative and exclusionary food and land use systems, and towards more ecologically sound and socially equitable systems. This includes inquiring into and experimenting with more democratic and counter-capitalist governance of land, food and seeds.
Elise incorporates participatory approaches into her research when possible. She has facilitated deliberative, farmer-centred, and arts based participatory processes in relation to food systems at transnational and local levels, including as Principle Investigator for the Transitions to Agroecological Food Systems project in England, Nicaragua and Senegal. She also incorporates participatory learning approaches into her teaching.
While Elise has nearly a decade of experience working in East Africa, Central America and South Asia, since 2014 she has focused her work primarily in the UK and Europe. However, her research has strong international links, given the interconnectedness of today’s food systems and the historical and contemporary links between the UK / Europe and other localities via colonialism, enslavement and neocolonialism.
Apart from her research, Elise works as a food producer, and is a co-founder of a community food project which produces food for local consumption with a focus on social equity, while also re-skilling and supporting nature connectedness and belonging. She is also a practitioner of Contact Improvisation and other embodied movement forms and is increasingly incorporating embodied practices into her research.
