Food riots and food rights: the moral and political economy of accountability for hunger
This report (PDF) synthesises the findings from four country case studies produced for the DFID-ESRC project. The paper explores causes and consequences of food-related riots and right-to-food movements in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Mozambique in the period 2007-2012. The researchers analysed media content and held in-depth interviews with protest movements and communities; and with policymakers and practitioners. The authors theorise that six collective, widely-held beliefs combine to create the conditions for a rupture in the form of a food riot or subsistence protest. A key methodological lesson from this research is that media content, international and national, cannot be relied on for ‘data’ on popular political events like riots or protests.