Jannie Armstrong

PhD title

Competing Claims in a Changing World: An Interpretive Analysis of Food Security Discourse in Lao PDR.

Education

• 2010
  City University, London, UK
  PhD Candidate, Centre for Food Policy Studies
• 2007-2009
  City University, London, UK
  Master of Sciences, with distinction, Food Policy
  Awarded the Worshipful Company of Farmers prize for food policy and agriculture, 2009
• 1990-1994
  Vassar College, New York, United States
  Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude

PhD synopsis

Since the 1996 World Food Summit, food security has had an internationally accepted definition: when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy and active life.  Its three elements are availability, access and appropriate use of food. The underlying goal of food security is to eliminate undernutrition it all its forms wherever it is found.

Adopting an internationally agreed-upon definition has not, however, translated into cohesive action.  In the literature, food security is beset with theoretical vagueness and complex measurement systems, and in practice by intermittent political commitment and geopolitical and social relativism.   In the years since 1996, global prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition have continued to rise, despite consistent reiteration of food security as a political, economic and social goal.   Nevertheless, the concept is supported by an elaborate architecture of international and national institutions, and remains an explicit policy priority for both developing and developed nations alike.

This research paper will describe fieldwork findings demonstrating that the interpretation of 'food security' is in practice wholly dependent on the prevailing local context.  The paper will suggest that the concept of food security has become so mutable as to encompass a broad range of practices and has lost rigour as an organizing framework.  The concluding chapters discuss the extent to which the food security approach remains fit for purpose, and will suggest how to revitalize both the concept and its application.

Why it matters for food policy

Southeast Asia has been underrepresented in the academic discourse on food security.  With the researcher based in Vientiane, Laos, the research will explore how food security is mediated in the Southeast Asian context, specifically Laos, with comparators in Thailand and Vietnam.  Using an interpretive analytic approach, this research highlights the challenges that developing nations face in realizing food security so as to actually reduce their numbers of undernourished people.

Research interests

Food security, nutrition, international development policy, developing nations, regional governance, public policy.