Elise Wach is a Research Advisor within the Resource Politics and Environmental Change research cluster. She researches pathways for realising 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, which 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 then identify practical pathways away from these capitalist food and land use systems, and towards more ecological and socially equitable systems. This includes examining more democratic and counter-capitalist governance of land, seeds and trade.
Elise incorporates participatory approaches into her research when possible. This has included facilitating deliberative, farmer-centred, and arts based participatory processes in relation to food systems at transnational and local levels. 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 refocused her work on the ‘Global North’ and particularly the UK. However, her research has strong links to the ‘Global South,’ given the interconnectedness of today’s food systems and the historical links between them via colonialism, slavery / enslavement and neocolonialism.
Apart from her research, Elise works as a food producer, and is a co-founder of a community food project which both produces food for local consumption with a focus on social equity, while also re-skilling and providing ecological therapeutics. She is also a practitioner and teacher of Contact Improvisation and is increasingly incorporating this and other embodied practices into her research.
