School of Social and Political Science

Description

The relationship between urban built heritage and food cultures has so far received little scholarly attention in Scotland. Yet an analysis of the Glasgow Sustainable Food Directory (GSFD) - an interactive map that highlights commercial food outlets committed to environmentally and socially responsible practices, curated by Slow Food Glasgow and Glasgow Food Policy Partnership - suggests that this relationship may be far from arbitrary. Drawing on this project, the talk aims to analyse this relationship and the issues that emerge from it, including those that contribute to widening the gap between Scottish consumers and the origins of their food. The talk positions the built environment as a significant yet underexplored dimension of the food system, one with the potential to counteract that growing disconnection. Through on ongoing qualitative fieldwork, including spatial observation and interviews, the talk investigates why sustainable food businesses so frequently find themselves operating in certain spaces rather than others.

The study argues that the built environment fulfils a vital function within farm-to-fork strategies, acting as a socio-material infrastructure that actively conditions sustainable food practices. Older buildings incorporate small-scale enterprises into the fabric of residential neighbourhoods, allowing independent businesses to become embedded in local life and to nurture everyday encounters and shared values of care. Approaching this through a foodscape lens reveals how such physical settings operate as cultural resources, contributing to the preservation of local food systems and offering some resistance to the commodification of fragile food culture.

Bio:

Federico Lubrani is a PhD candidate in Management at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. With an academic background in Conservation of Cultural Heritage Theory, his work bridges food culture and sustainability, focusing on analysing the relationship between bottom-up and top-down approaches to support the development and promotion of resilient local food systems. As a practitioner, he has coordinated several Slow Food projects since 2017, promoting public engagement in cultural biodiversity and producer–consumer connections in Scotland.