Priscilla Claeys is Associate Professor in Food Sovereignty, Human Rights and Resilience at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University (UK). She holds her PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium (2013). Priscilla’s main research focus concerns human rights and social movements. She is particularly interested in understanding processes of legal mobilizations by which social actors use and seek to transform the law to advance their claims. She is also passionate about food security governance and ways to increase participation and encourage inclusion and diversity in policy-making spaces. Between 2012 and 2018, she followed and supported the process of negotiation of a UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas, which was adopted in December 2018 by the UN General Assembly. She is now exploring ways to support the implementation of the Declaration, notably through participatory action research on gender and community/collective rights in Africa. Priscilla is on the International Board of FIAN International and the President of FIAN Belgium. Before becoming an academic, she worked as Senior Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter (2008-2014), as well as for a number of human rights organizations and development NGOs.
“Spirituality is deeply anti-systemic”: An interview with Indigenous Thinker Antonio Gonzalez from the Aj Mayon Collective in Guatemala
By Priscilla Claeys, Jasber Singh, Agroecology Now!
Many people are now realizing that they cannot move forward without us. And indigenous peoples are saying: “you are not going to talk on our behalf, nor about us, anymore”.
“Spirituality has been a common glue”: An interview with La Via Campesina’s Paul Nicholson
By Priscilla Claeys, Jasber Singh, Agroecology Now!
What roles does spirituality play in food sovereignty struggles? To what extent do spirituality and religion support or impede movement building?
Reconfiguring Food Systems Governance: The UNFSS and the Battle over Authority and Legitimacy
By Priscilla Claeys, Matthew Canfield, Jessica Duncan, Agroecology Now!
By replacing multilateralism with multi-stakeholderism, the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) is advancing a vision of food systems governance that sets the foundation for stronger corporate influence both of the UN and food systems at large.
Power to the Elites? Multistakeholderism and the UN Food Systems Summit
By Priscilla Claeys, Jessica Duncan, Agroecology Now!
In theory, encouraging dialogue between various parties is a good thing. In practice, multistakeholder processes often fail to recognise that not all stakes are the same.
Failure to Engage: Civil Society Marginalized in UN Food Summit
By Priscilla Claeys, Jessica Duncan, Agroecology Now!
The failure of the UN Food Systems Summit to adequately engage civil society is one key reason why hundreds of civil society organisations have decided not to participate.