Josh Brem-Wilson

Josh Brem-Wilson is from the suburbs of South-East London. Until his late 20s his primary focus was his development as a singer-songwriter and poet. At the age of 30 he began an undergraduate degree in Development and Peace Studies, at the Department of Peace Studies, the University of Bradford. This followed through into a PhD examining the new democratic possibilities emerging through the encounter of the global social movement, La Vía Campesina, and transnational food and agricultural policy-making. His work now focuses more specifically upon identifying and negotiating the challenges faced by social movement and non-elite actors seeking effective participation in formal (formal food and agricultural) policy processes. Josh sets a very high importance to collaborative ways of researching and (co-) producing knowledge. His main achievement to date is the development of a novel analytical framework for interrogating the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in formal policy processes. He is in the process of translating that framework into a set of ‘thinking tools’ to be applied during the design and evaluation of inclusive policy processes. Prior to his academic career, Josh has worked as a taxi driver, a labourer, a security guard, and a collector of clinical waste, amongst others. His guitar, cooking, poetry, and watching sport are other things he enjoys.

I am very inspired by the idea that those affected by political decision-making have a right to participate in its exercise. This has led me to research the struggle for voice of smallholder food producers and other ‘affected publics’ in transnational food and agricultural policy-making. Through an applied research agenda focusing on tracking the challenges faced by these actors in this domain, I hope to help support their opportunities for effective participation therein.