Dr Lucy Aphramor

Biography

‍Dr Lucy Aphramor is an Associate Professor in Gender, Power and the Right to Food at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University and a poet. They studied nutrition and dietetics at Surrey University, hold a Certificate in Permaculture Design from Hong University (SPACE) and a Certificate in Women’s Studies and Literature. They ran a small market garden, an even smaller bakery, and worked in mental health advocacy before entering dietetics in the NHS. Patient stories caused them to become concerned about fat stigma and to question the usefulness of a lifestyle approach to public health. What about trauma? What about racism? Disability justice? Poverty? They developed a health-justice approach, that acknowledges the impact of power in nutrition-related conditions, like diabetes and heart disease. Subsequent contributions to research and scholarship were helped by an appointment as Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, Coventry University. Lucy is interested in food work that takes seriously compassion, trauma, pedagogy, creativity, salutogenesis, white supremacy, story and more to serve social justice. They have taught - and performed social action poetry - widely in academic, activist, general, and LGBTQ+ community spaces at home and overseas. They left the NHS to run a social enterprise, later focusing on change through training, consultancy and performance. They are a founder member of the World Critical Dietetics Association and hold a PhD by Publication in Critical Dietetics from Coventry University. A significant flaw in their earlier work was that it neglected ontologies of interconnection (hallmarks of indigeneity, animism, liberation theology) and therefore unwittingly reproduced coloniality.  They are working to set the record queer.

Institution: Centre for Agroecology Water and Resilience, Coventry University , UK

For Lucy's full academic profile and recent publications click here