Queer Ruralities International Workshop Series: Invitation to apply

The understandings and uses of gender as a category of analysis across agri-foods research, particularly within research for development, have traditionally followed narrow, binary framings propagated by international development and supra-national, national and regional regulatory bodies. This focus on gender has been, and in the great majority of literature continues to be, expressly defined as a focus on men and women and the gendered roles these people perform across agri-food systems. Despite some progress following the recognition by international leaders and multilateral agencies to advocate for LGBTQA+ rights (Badgett et al., 2019; Bergenfield and Miller, 2014; Jolly, 2022; Keller, 2020), research specifically addressing the unique challenges faced by individuals of diverse Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and/or Expression (SOGIE) within rural and agrifood systems remains scarce.

Indeed, the conflation of sex and gender; the lack of engagement with masculinities and femininities or diversity of gender identity and sexual orientation; and the intersectional identities of marginalised communities in the majority of international agrifoods research and policies seeking to address gender inequality has resulted in a pervasive understanding of ‘gender equality’ as synonymous with – and limited to – women’s programming (Mangubhai and Lawless, 2021; Mangubhai et al., 2022).

Even where research has critiqued the narrow definition of ‘woman’ in development literature, this work continues to overwhelmingly centre cis-heterosexual womanhood (e.g., Galappaththi et al., 2021; Koralagama et al., 2017) and fails to capture the complexity and breadth of women’s experiences (Erwin et al., 2021).  

A queer perspective addresses the heteronormative order structuring rural livelihoods, from farmland inheritance law to gendered divisions of labor on the farm, and the imaginary of the good and future farmer (cf. Leslie 2019; Pfammatter and Hoffelmeyer 2025). This nascent body of research has overwhelmingly focused on experiences of queer farming and farmers located in the USA and Central Europe (Bett et al., 2021a; Hoffelmeyer, 2020; Knott and Gustavsson, 2022; Pfammatter and Jongerden 2023; Raj 2024). However, an emerging body of research and activism from scholars and community advocates across the Global South is demanding space for new voices and contributing local, culturally located experience and critique.