Dr Rita Calvário

Small Group Project 2024-25

Fighting for Gender and Food Justice: Rural Women's Struggles in Portugal, Galicia, and the Basque Country

With Joseba Azkarraga Etxagibel & Ana Cabana Iglesia

This project seeks to illuminate the often-overlooked rural women’s experiences and leadership in agrarian struggles and their pursuit of gender equality. Employing oral history and qualitative research methods, the study aims to gather and analyse testimonies from rural women across three distinct geographical contexts, with a focus on areas characterised by small to medium-sized family farming: Portugal, Galicia, and the Basque Country.

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Biography

Rita Calvário is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES). Her vast experience covers multidisciplinary research as an agronomist, social scientist and specialist in political ecology, centred on the study of agrarian social movements, environmental conflicts in rural areas, social and gender inequalities and struggles for food and environmental justice, with a focus on Southern Europe. She is currently leading a project on gender relations and women in agriculture in Portugal, funded by FCT. She also coordinates at CES the HORIZON SWIFT-Supporting Women-led Innovations in Farming and Rural Territories project, led by CSIC, where she conducts research into migrant women in agriculture in Portugal and Spain. She is also a collaborating researcher at the BCNUEJ-Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability. In the last five years she has led and published research in top journals, including the Journal of Peasant Studies, Sociologia Ruralis and Antipode. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Social Movements, Institutions and Governance - a specialised section of Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. She is part of Research Group 4 (RISE) and the ECOSOC group.

Biographical details correct as of 14.02.25

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