Transdisciplinary Partnerships for Food Literacy Education Research and Professional Development

Food literacy education is directly linked to global issues, such as social inequity in food access, environmental degradation, and economic imbalances in trade and corporate consolidation. While food literacy education fosters informed consumers who prioritize sustainability and ethics in their food choices, while also empowering them to engage in community and political action for transforming food systems, it currently is over-theorised and under-practiced. The Food Literacy International Partnership (FLIP) is a project that brings together scholars from four countries – Australia, Canada, Sweden and the US - to create partnerships that are focused on food literacy practices and outcomes, and on supporting educators. In this paper, we describe the development of these transnational, transdisciplinary partnerships, noting the affordances and challenges that emerged and how these were addressed. As part of implementing these partnerships, we published a website that hosted resources, held webinars, worked directly with educators, supported junior scholars, convened a symposium, and presented at conferences; through all of these, we added individuals and groups to our partnership network. The development of these partnerships highlights the need and potential for more discourse and collaboration around food literacy across national borders, enabling this work to have the most impact in contributions to more sustainable and socially just food systems worldwide.