Dr Kiah Smith
Forgan Smith (1)
UQ ST LUCIA CAMPUS
Kiah Smith is a Sociologist (Senior Research Fellow) with expertise in environment, development and food studies. With a strong record of international publications on food justice, food security, resilience, financialisation, ethical trade, green economy, sustainable livelihoods, gender empowerment and food system governance, Kiah’s work contributes new understandings of the social dimensions of food system transformation at the intersection of multiple crises. Using mostly qualitative, participatory methodologies (such as action research and future scenario planning), her research places particular emphasis on the role that civil society plays in transformative policy making that is systems-focused and more inclusive of diverse perspectives. For example, she currently leads an ARC DECRA study that examines how civic stakeholders are able to resist, reshape or redefine what a just and sustainable food system might look like, based on extensive collaboration with participants from academia, civil society, local government and grassroots food systems (food hubs, community gardens, and food charities) in Australia and internationally. This interdisciplinary research agenda can best be summarised as one where ‘food futures’ are closely connected with ‘deep’ sustainability, rights, justice and empowerment, thus building the growing field of ‘sustainability transitions’.
Over the past decade, Kiah has collaborated with FIAN International on the right to food, UN Women on their ‘Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice’, UNRISD programmes on ‘A new eco-social contract’ and ‘Localising the SDGs’, and Future Earth through her ‘Fair Food Futures’ podcast and animation. Other past and present studies include: Multifunctional horticulture, land, labour and environments; Ethical consumption and COVID; Responsible innovation in digital agriculture; Employment policy and indigenous food sovereignty in remote Australia; Financialisation of food and farmland in Australia; Resilience and governance of Australian food systems during crisis; and Mapping civil society, human rights and the SDGs. Future studies will explore the right to food, ‘fair food’ procurement, and civic policy councils.
At the Centre for Policy Futures, Kiah’s expertise in justice, rights and empowerment will contribute across the focal areas, and help to build the Centre’s capacity for research as social action, non-traditional research translation and impact, and policy engagement with the SDGs.