SWIFT: Supporting Women-led Innovation in Farming Territories

SWIFT, which stands for Supporting Women-Led Innovations in Farming and Rural Territories, is a 4 year funded Horizon Europe project set up with the purpose to advance the position of women and LGBTQI+ persons in farming, and to investigate how agroecological processes can promote gender equality.

Our approach: SWIFT is an transdisciplinary project that engages with applied feminist innovation studies research.

The project has the following specific objectives:

1. Design and test an innovative SWIFT methodology and conceptual framework grounded in feminist approaches and human rights-based perspectives;
2. Co-develop intersectional methodologies and tools to analyse women-led innovations in agriculture and food systems;
3. Strengthen co-learning across initiatives to amplify women-led innovations and empower diverse groups of actors to act for change
4. Provide and test practical tools to reframe agricultural and rural policies based on the SWIFT conceptual framework
5. Scale novel feminist and human rights-based perspectives on productive and reproductive contributions to sustainable rural development into agricultural policies

SWIFT has 14 partners from nine countries and engages with 21 Women-Led Initiatives across 12 countries across Europe, but also 5 initiatives in Brazil and the USA.

SWIFT comes from an Action Research perspective that aims to support and accompany the process of amplifying the voices of women and gender diversities within Europe. Based on numerous conversations between researchers and women producers, it was decided to draft a research project that would coordinate a consortium of peasant women, as well as researchers from different universities and research centers throughout Europe, together with social and civil organisations working for agroecology and food sovereignty from a feminist approach.

SWIFT has been built as a transdisciplinary research consortium involving not only organisations and projects within La Via Campesina, but also other progressive initiatives both in Europe and beyond, in particular in Brazil and the United States. The latter are considered referents and inspiring initiatives given their trajectory of struggle and transformative character, especially in Brazil, and the advances achieved in the feminist and LGBTIQ+ struggle within agroecology and food sovereignty.

In the project call, the language used primarily referred to the term “women”. However, it’s essential to emphasize that in SWIFT, we embrace a broad perspective on gender from an intersectional standpoint. We are mindful of the multiplicity and diversity of our identities, recognizing how different axes, such as gender, race, class, or sexual orientation, intersect and position us uniquely in various contexts and moments. Within SWIFT, we use the term “WLI” to encompass projects and initiatives led by both women and individuals from the LGBTIQ+ community. The chosen terminology aligns with that of the ECVC, employing “women” and “diversities” to denote individuals who deviate from the norm of cisheteropatriarchy and experience oppression as a result.

CONTACT INFO

For any questions or collaborations related to our research project, please contact us at swift@ingenio.upv.es. We welcome your feedback and contributions.