HerStory, a feminist activist-researcher collective, emanated from the Food Solidarity Working group of the Solidarity Action Group Movement that ESSRG has actively been involved in over the past year. While the Working Group primarily represented organisations, HerStory succeeded to bring researchers, activists, and members of the civil society together, however, still benefiting from organisational support.
ESSRG is one of the organisations that has assisted the establishment of HerStory within the framework of the InSPIRES project. Members of the collective, before commencing extensive research processes, conducted an internal research agenda-setting research to excavate topical unknowns and bring their common ambitions and reflections forward. Further internal focused-group discussions contributed to the elaboration of the collective’s research agenda and long-term common goals.
Conclusion of the research agenda-setting and internal discussions:
- to conduct research on the border of (eco-)feminist activism and academic inquiry
- to shed light on women’s positionality and experiences within the global food system, viewing from Hungary
- to research women’s positionality and experiences within the food sovereignty movement in Hungary
- to research women’s positionality and experiences in agri-food chains in Hungarian
- to research women’s experiences within food production in underprivileged regions
- to involve different social groups and individuals in the research processes
- to develop a community code of ethics and innovative community methodologies that
facilitate collaborative work and co-creation processes - to produce and deliver more interviews in accessible language: blogposts, comics,
video and other creative formats - to establish community services and training to empower women
- to collaborate with feminist eco-communities and strengthen autonomous communities
InSPIRES e-learning platform
A continuous self-reflective discussion on the research agenda setting’s result continued within the collective, mainly with the intention of producing an animated video about their internal dynamics and work ethics. The InSPIRES project encouraged the collective to co-create content for the e-learning platform which offers six learning modules on participatory research processes. HerStory shared its experiences and reflections in the ‘Reflexivity and Ethics’ section:
‘Reflexivity entails making conscious efforts to think about and analyse our own and other stakeholders’ attitudes, views, values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, cultural conditioning, and more. In this module, you will learn about self- and joint-reflective practices, and how these contribute to more objective and meaningful solutions to the community challenge that motivated the Science Shop project.’
HerStory for democratic and egalitarian collaborations
‘Promoting and engaging in self- and joint reflection among actors is needed to provide a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of the context and the problem. Take a look at the following video to gain awareness of the importance of reflecting on your own position within the pre-existing social dynamics, and what implications these might have on the project. The video introduces a feminist ethical framework that the activist-research group from Hungary developed since its establishment. Members of the group will unpack self-reflexive processes that lead to the establishment of the group. Shared gendered experiences of the members and concerns coming from the interviewers are channeled into an ethical framework and research agenda of HerStory.’