Participatory food and nutrition security assessment in a community of Salvador, Brazil

Abstract

This paper addresses a Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) participatory assessment developed together with community leaders and residents in Salvador city, Bahia, Brazil. Our reflection aims to analyze this research – including design, data generated, and its use – discussing the concept of FNS and its existing assessment methods. Secondary data were found to be difficult to access or of little utility to local activists. The household survey designed and used by the participants characterized the food and nutrition insecurity situation in vulnerable areas of the community, in a dialogue with national and socioeconomic indicators, evidencing robust data. First of all, the relevance of participatory approaches stood out: while the results show how much FNS is intricately embedded into a broader social vulnerability context, they show how critical it is to consider FNS research as a political instrument and the knowledge it produces as a power-related instrument. In this sense, FNS assessment is established as an emancipatory process, indissociable from the action and social change actors.