This is the third edition of Ideas from IDS, our publication featuring student essays, now from the 2018/19 academic year. This is the first time this publication has a thematic focus: food.
Food is a prominent development issue that concerns hunger, malnutrition, inequality, environmental sustainability, power and politics, social justice, and cultural identity. It is about the trade-offs that this era of globalisation has brought about, such as ensuring food security for all, while protecting the environment. It is about striking paradoxes such as the concurrence of under and overnutrition, sometimes in the same country or region, which reflects pervasive social inequalities and power imbalances in the food system.
As this publication illustrates, postgraduate teaching at the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Sussex reflects the significance of food in global development and its relevance across disciplines and fields of study. This publication compiles a selection of ten essays written by students undertaking six different postgraduate courses: MA Development Studies; MA Gender and Development; MA Globalisation, Business and Development; MA Poverty and Development; MSc Climate Change, Development and Policy; and the new MA Food and Development. The latter, specifically, encapsulates the growing significance of food studies in research and teaching at Sussex. This new course, which has just celebrated the graduation of its first cohort of students, has recently been listed by Devex amongst the top 20 unique courses and programmes in global development.