Who is and who should be caring for urban food systems? A feminist ethics of care perspective on the case of Barcelona

This paper applies a feminist ethics of care perspective to the study of initiatives trying to transform urban food systems (FS), focusing on the city of Barcelona. Starting from interview results with diverse actors (public administrations, alternative food networks, researchers), it adopts an experimental orientation to detect what is already happening on the ground in terms of how care is practiced, and by whom, in urban food governance, and starts from there to wonder who is, and who should be, responsible to/for care in urban FS. The findings reveal a strong presence of women in both volunteering roles and paid/power positions, but a general lack of collective awareness of the space women occupy in this context and few examples of practical strategies to address gender inequalities. The paper also discusses the intersection of care and responsibility, how personal and collective ethics often enter into conflict and have to be negotiated, the role of urban areas and even neighborhoods in providing a space for negotiation, and in turn how such ethics can shape the practices of urban food initiatives. The case-study of Barcelona provides insights into the transformative potential of feminist care ethics in addressing gender and power dynamics in urban FS but also reveals persisting gendered roles and unbalanced division of responsibility around care and food.