Course description
The course observes global and local trends of the last part of the food supply chain, related to food purchase and consumption in the historical city of Venice and its lagoon. Through an interdisciplinary, exploratory approach, the aim is to support students in identifying paradoxes and conflicts that articulate the food narrative from a Global North perspective, where food scarcity doesn't seem to be perceived as an issue.

Food justice is one of the main issues worldwide, focused on ensuring universal access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally-appropriate food for all. Food-related issues also allow us to shed light on urban inequalities. Food is a fundamental human right; it is a physiological need triggered by hunger. Hunger is the mechanism that connects bodies to food and can be triggered either by a lack of food, generating a need, or by a psychological satisfaction that broadens the concept of hunger from need to desire through a symbolic and status-representative dimension.

The course aims to explore the city and lagoon of Venice through a dual declination of hunger, in the dichotomy between need and desire. This approach will raise some paradoxes and contradictions that lie in the friction between luxury experiences and grassroots popular events, between accessibility and privilege, and between tradition and innovation. Hunger becomes an interpretative key to questioning the dynamics of this territory, within tourist flows and everyday life practices, through different places where it manifests itself, by different populations and targets.

Through a series of in-depth lessons and fieldwork, the course will explore the last mile of food supply chains, which are Venetian places for the provision, consumption, and purchase of food. The exploration methodology combines system information with direct observation and assessment of local conditions. The collection and analysis of official data overlaps with interviews, guided explorations, and students' dérives to identify key places and stakeholders and understand food-related phenomena.

Some questions will guide the course:

What kind of food inequalities shape the territory? How do we identify, represent, and communicate food-related issues in ever-changing conditions? What conflicts and paradoxes link Venice to food? What geographies does hunger take in the city of Venice?

The goals of the course are the following:

• To introduce students to food as a glocal complex system;
• To introduce students to some specificity related to the last-mile food supply chain in Venice and its lagoon;
• To understand the dichotomy between food need and food desire as an urban issue in transformation;
• To recognize the hidden food inequalities that are spread throughout the city.

Learning outcomes of the course

The skills that students should acquire through the course are:

1. Understanding global/local dynamics related to food. Thanks to lectures, an extensive bibliography, and a collection of case studies, students will be able to understand and interpret the complexity of food system dynamics, existing macro and micro geographies, and interdependencies between sectors and territories.
2. Problematising urban issues related to food. Through the in-depth study of a specific case, that of Venice city, students will be able to fully understand the frictions and inequalities that arise in food systems and interpret them in the urban space.
3. Mapping urban and social phenomena in transformation. Through fieldwork and meetings with local actors and experts from different fields, students will acquire useful tools for analysing the phenomena that characterise urban food systems in the contemporary world.
4. Recognising forms of inequality in urban spaces. Through mapping phenomena, listening to local stakeholders, and critically interpreting data and information, students will learn methods for recognising and visualising forms of spatial, food, and socio-ecological injustice.

Syllabus - modules breakdown

The course is structured into 3 modules of different durations. Each module includes theoretical lectures, practical insights, and exercises to test some tools.

MODULE 1 (weeks 1 and 2): Food as a complex system

Introduction to the core topic of the course, framing issues and main questions. This module focuses on the functioning of food supply chains, from global to local scale, unfolding the food as a complex urban system, interconnected to other urban flows such as water, energy, soil, waste, mobility, etc.

Activities:
Course introduction
Frontal lectures
Frontal lecture with invited guests

Work and group discussion (exercise on food system visualization)

MODULE 2 (weeks 3-7): Food and the city of Venice

Description of the context of Venice and its Lagoon in relation to food dynamics. This module presents the particular case of Venice and the Lagoon food system(s) through both a general overview and in-depth narratives on some specific areas (Chioggia, Cavallino Treporti, and Mestre). The module will focus on the interaction between food and people movement (inhabitants, visitors, commuters, tourists). Useful tools for organising fieldwork will also be provided, and site visits will be conducted in the various districts of Venice.

Activities:
Frontal lectures
Frontal lecture with invited guests
Three Site visits with three encounters

Work and group discussion (exercise on debriefing of site visits, development of a field journal)

MODULE 3 (weeks 8-12): Food inequalities in the city of Venice

Examining the issues surrounding the contemporary food system. This module focuses on the problematisation of food-related urban dynamics in the context of Venice, with particular attention to the condition of food justice and accessibility. The theoretical contributions will frame issues in a general and global perspective, whilst the exercises will focus on specific cases in Venice to identify emerging inequalities.

Activities:
Frontal lectures
Frontal lecture with invited guests
Individual/group dérives

Work and group discussion (development of the field journal and collective mapping)

Outputs:

1. An individual or group field journal, which records direct observations of the case (locations, interviews, impressions, maps, images, data collection, etc.).
2. A collaborative digital map created by the whole class, bringing together individual observations, which will serve as a tool to stimulate discussion.

Teaching and evaluation methods

The course will be structured as follows:

• thematic lessons providing a theoretical framework relating to: food and supply chains; the scale of supply chains; spatial justice, food justice and rights; food in Venice and its lagoon.
• lessons that will take place outside the classroom, in the field, with the help of local experts on the course topics that the class will meet in their place of activity (cafes, restaurants, markets, boats, etc.).
• a collaborative mapping exercise of urban phenomena related to the theme of food is planned, supported by individual/group field trips organised in the form of dérives.

Students will study independently and work individually or in groups, with a focus on critical analysis and problem diagnosis. A heuristic-participatory pedagogical approach will be followed, integrating specialist and non-specialist knowledge, encouraging students to collaborate, and periodically sharing and presenting their work.

The overall grade will result from the evaluation of: oral examination to assess the student's preparation with regard to the theoretical framework (50%), knowledge of the reference bibliography (20%), and the mapping exercise (30%).

Bibliography

Baldacci C., Bassi S., De Capitani L., Omodeo P.D. eds. (2022). Venice and the Anthropocene. An Ecocritical Guide. Venice: Wetlands.

Bodenhamer, D., Corrigan, J. and Harris, T. (2015). Deep maps and spatial narratives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bonati, Sara. "History to Eat. The Foodification of the Historic Centre of Florence." Cities, Elsevier BV, 2020.

Checchinato F., Cunico P., Finotto V. (2025). Commitment, Community, Territory: Unpacking Authenticity and the Influence of Tourism in Restaurants. SSRN Electronic Journal. 10.2139/ssrn.5677385.

Lefebvre H. (2004). Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. London: Continuum.

Marcuse P. (2009). "Spatial justice: derivative but causal of social injustice", JS|SJ, 01

Pink, S. (2015), Doing sensory ethnography. 2nd edn. London: SAGE.

Tilzey, M. (2019). Food Democracy as 'Radical' Food Sovereignty: Agrarian Democracy and Counter-Hegemonic Resistance to the Neo-Imperial Food Regime. Politics and Governance. https://doi.org/10.17645/PAG.V7I4.2091.

Rocco, R. (2025). Spatial Justice. The Basics. London: Routledge.

Secchi, B. (2010). "A new urban question". Territorio n.53, pp. 8-18.

Simon S (2023) Economics, urban planning, and food systems: from "chrematistike" to "oikonomia" toward sustainable cities. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 7:1154639. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1154639.

Soja, E.W. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Sonnino, R. (2013). "Local foodscapes: Place and power in the agri-food system", Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, 63(1), pp. 2–7.

Steel C. (2008). Hungry Cities. How food shapes our lives. London: Vintage Publisher.

Salerno, G.M., Russo, A. P. (2022). 'Venice as a short-term city. Between global trends and local lock-ins.' in Minoia, P., Jokela, S. (eds), "Platform-Mediated Tourism. Social Justice and Urban Governance before and during Covid-19", Routledge: London.

Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Course duration: 40 hours of tuition
Credits equivalence: 6 ECTS

Last updated: August 6, 2026