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Over the past decade, famine and food insecurity have increased, yet there have been few articles with a critical analysis of their social and political dynamics. This special issue of Disasters aims to revive such analysis and to provide new insights. The special issue contains eight articles, with topics ranging from the role of global politics and neoliberal strategies, to sanctions, war, settler‐colonialism, elite capture and inequalities, actions of resistance and resilience, and the challenges of famine prevention in today's global political context. The papers provide both global and local analysis, with the latter covering Kashmir, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the world has faced a rapid rise in humanitarian needs and an increasing risk of famine. Given the potential threats posed by conflict, climate change, economic shocks, and other issues, it is important to be prepared for the possibility of new crises in the future. Drawing on key informant interviews and a literature review, this paper assesses the state of the art in famine prevention, examining a range of technical and political approaches and analysing emerging lessons. Based on the findings, it identifies five levels of famine prevention: (i) averting famine; (ii) anticipating famine; (iii) reducing famine risks; (iv) altering famine risks; and (v) preventing famine risks. The paper argues that the current focus only partially addresses a relatively narrow set of levels. It concludes that a more comprehensive approach that engages all five levels simultaneously could contribute to a global famine prevention framework for the twenty‐first century and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise estimates of the impact of famine on infant and child mortality are rare due to lack of representative data. Using vital statistics reports on the Netherlands for 1935–47, we examine the impact of the Dutch famine (November 1944 to May 1945) on age-specific mortality risk and cause of death in four age groups (stillbirths, <1 year, 1–4, 5–14) in the three largest famine-affected cities and the remainder of the country. Mortality during the famine is compared with the pre-war period January 1935 to April 1940, the war period May 1940 to October 1944, and the post-war period June 1945 to December 1947. The famine's impact was most visible in infants because of the combined effects of a high absolute death rate and a threefold increase in proportional mortality, mostly from gastrointestinal conditions. These factors make infant mortality the most sensitive indicator of famine severity in this setting and a candidate marker for comparative use in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape ‘regimes of truth’ around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long‐term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine‐related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skyrocketing commodity prices and conflict‐induced mass hunger in recent years have resuscitated discussions about why famines frequently reoccur in specific spaces of vulnerability. Intervention efforts still too often isolate food (in)security from its interwovenness in the political economy of water and energy and from the role of ideas in forging these interconnections across long time periods. Using (South) Sudanese history to rethink the causes of recurrent food insecurity, we underscore the need to analyse how political elites imagine the role of the water–energy–food nexus and associated environmental narratives in consolidating power. South Sudan's 2011 secession (from Sudan) marked the culmination of a struggle against a state that insurgents regarded as having starved its citizens. However, since independence, its leaders have replicated the nostrum they once combatted: Sudanese resources must ‘feed the world’. A fixation with inserting water, energy, and food resources into global markets infuses their strategy, even if such an approach will not engender food abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resurgence of famines is a topic of concern. This paper explains the recent trajectory using the framework of contending ‘global war economies’. It characterises the unipolar neoliberal world order era (1986–2015) as the ‘Pax Americana’ war economy, focusing on the United States dollar's roles. These were the decades of the liberal imperium, the corporate food regime, and counterinsurgent coalitions, which generated structural vulnerability to food crises and reduced the actual incidence and lethality of famine. The paper characterises the subsequent period (2016 onwards) as the challenge of the BRICS club, focusing on its efforts to rewrite the global political economy's rules, proactively hedging among diversifying currency regimes. This entails a scramble to secure strategic commodities and infrastructure in subaltern countries, which is intensifying conflict and food insecurity, and revising international norms in favour of reasserting sovereign rights. The global political–economic contestation and, especially, the associated normative regression are permissive of political and military triggers of famine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the state-induced famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine as a public health crisis and explores the interplay between medical ethics and medical practices. As state employees and agents of the state, medical professionals participated in organization of the healthcare system and construction of a new, Soviet society. Among other spheres, the revolutionary change concerned medical ethics. Officially, pre-Soviet principles of professional ethics were rejected, and new ethical concepts were determined by class interest and class consciousness. The rapid industrialization, forced collectivization and food requisitions and seizure of the late 1920 and early 1930s resulted in the catastrophic famine and deaths of millions of Soviet citizens. Ukraine was one of the most affected regions, and the explosive spread of epidemic diseases followed mass starvation. In their efforts to cope with this crisis and stop the spread of epidemics from the countryside to urban centres, the authorities imposed disciplinary public health orders that resulted in the intensification of state violence, and hundreds of thousands of rural and urban dwellers were treated by medical professionals. The article examines the role of Soviet medical professionals and their entanglement with ethical discourse and medical practice during the famine of 1932–1933. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's Winterkill (2022), a recent Holodomor middle-grade historical novel issued by Scholastic, and showcases that Skrypuch explores the implicated position of North Americans – especially Soviet collaborators and journalists – in the context of the famine and Stalin's collectivization. Most notably, Winterkill brings attention to the actions of Rhea Clyman, a Jewish-Canadian journalist who wrote factual articles about the situation in the Soviet Union but until the mid-2010s was largely forgotten. In the first part of the article, the author briefly introduces the historical background and points to the recent increase of Holodomor-themed Anglophone books. Then, close reading Winterkill, they argue that many characters in the novel, including the ones based on Clyman and Alice, a Ukrainian Canadian girl she met in Kharkiv in 1932, emerge as what Michael Rothberg has called "implicated subjects." The article demonstrates that at first the foreigners in the novel are enchanted with Stalinism, accept its benefits, and their actions – directly and indirectly – contribute to the destruction of the Ukrainian countryside. Winterkill showcases both the importance of recognizing one's implication and sharing the testimony of the Holodomor witnesses, hence keeping the memory of the famine and its victims alive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impacts of war and siege on farmers' livelihoods in Tigray (2020–2022), Ethiopia, through field observations during the crisis, and a literature review. We found military tactics and activities alongside institutional changes were the main pathways driving famine among vulnerable farming communities through destruction of crops, damage to property, and slaughter of livestock. Moreover, farmers were deprived of access to alternative sources of livelihood such as beekeeping, traditional gold mining, and seasonal migration. Notably, absence of freedom of movement and withdrawal of national and international aid organizations limited the farmers' survival options. The crisis also aggravated the pre-war food insecurity in the area. We argue that economic rehabilitation must be accompanied by the building of a durable peace as soon as possible to restore sustainable livelihoods for farming communities in Tigray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exposure to famine in the prenatal period is associated with an increased risk of metabolic disease, including obesity and type 2 diabetes. We employed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomic profiling to identify the metabolic changes that are associated with survival of prenatal famine exposure during the Dutch Famine at the end of World War II and subsequently assess their link to disease. Methods: NMR metabolomics data were generated from serum in 480 individuals prenatally exposed to famine (mean 58.8 years, 0.5 SD) and 464 controls (mean 57.9 years, 5.4 SD). We tested associations of prenatal famine exposure with levels of 168 individual metabolic biomarkers and compared the metabolic biomarker signature of famine exposure with those of 154 common diseases. Results: Prenatal famine exposure was associated with higher concentrations of branched-chain amino acids ((iso)-leucine), aromatic amino acid (tyrosine), and glucose in later life (0.2–0.3 SD, p < 3 × 10−3). The metabolic biomarker signature of prenatal famine exposure was positively correlated to that of incident type 2 diabetes from the UK Biobank (r = 0.77, p = 3 × 10−27), also when re-estimating the signature of prenatal famine exposure among individuals without diabetes (r = 0.67, p = 1 × 10−18). Remarkably, this association extended to 115 common diseases for which signatures were available (0.3 ≤ r ≤ 0.9, p < 3.2 × 10−4). Correlations among metabolic signatures of famine exposure and disease outcomes were attenuated when the famine signature was adjusted for body mass index. Conclusions: Prenatal famine exposure is associated with a metabolic biomarker signature that strongly resembles signatures of a diverse set of diseases, an observation that can in part be attributed to a shared involvement of obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The PELICan hypothesis speaks to the role of perinatal and early life stressors (including malnutrition) in the causation of young-onset cancers. To date, there is no evidence correlating perinatal malnutrition and the risk of young-onset cancer. The Great Famine of China was a significant event in human history. The present study compared the incidence of young-onset cancers in individuals born during and just after the famine to those born prior to the famine. Perinatal exposure to famine, especially in females, was associated with a higher risk of young-onset cancer. This was particularly evident for young-onset genitourinary cancers. Background/Objectives: Perinatal exposure to malnutrition has been hypothesised to influence the development of young-onset cancer (≤50 years of age). This study aimed to determine if perinatal malnutrition in individuals exposed to the Great Famine of China increased their risk of developing young-onset cancer compared to other individuals born prior to the famine. Subjects/Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 7272 participants from the China Health and Nutrition Survey who were classified into four groups based on birth year: participants born between 1953 and 1955 (before the famine) were designated as the pre-famine group (unexposed); the remainder formed perinatal exposure groups comprised of those exposed during the famine (1959–1961), those exposed in the early post-famine period (1962–1964), and those exposed in the late post-famine period (1965–1967). Multivariable adjusted log-binomial regression models were used to calculate the RR and 95% CI of young-onset cancer (including genitourinary cancer) across four groups. Results: Perinatal exposure to early post-famine (RR 2.08; 95%CI 1.04, 4.34; p = 0.043) and the female sex (RR 15.6, 95%CI 4.54, 60.3; p < 0.001) were noted to have a significantly increased risk of young-onset cancer. In addition, the early (RR 13.8; 95%CI 2.68, 253; p = 0.012) and late post-famine (RR 12.3; 95%CI 2.16, 231; p = 0.020) cohorts demonstrated a significantly increased risk of young-onset genitourinary cancer. The latter was accompanied by an increased risk of hypertension (RR 3.30; 95%CI 1.28, 7.87; p = 0.009). Conclusions: Perinatal exposure to famine, especially in females, was associated with a higher risk of young-onset cancer. This was particularly evident for young-onset genitourinary cancers. These findings highlight the potential long-term impact of perinatal malnutrition on young-onset carcinogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the study of historical and demographic aspects of famine in Kazakhstan between 1921 and 1923. The victims of the famine numbered in the deaths of thousands and caused irreparable losses. The purpose of the article is to conduct a historical and comparative analysis of the demographic consequences of famine. The research tasks include a comparative analysis of famine using archival documents, census materials and statistical data. In addition, the method of demographic analysis of the consequences of the famine, the scale of the damage and their impact on the life of the indigenous population of the republic will be applied. The distinctive feature of the research methodology is the systematization of statistical data on famine in various dimensions and modules. The findings of the study showed that the use of a comparative method to study the demographic consequences of famine contributes to a deeper study of this topic. The results obtained through qualitative analysis using statistical data served as an empirical basis for compiling a more complete demographic picture of famine in the 1920s of the 20th century in Kazakhstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk of famine is rising in many countries today. Bold changes to famine information and response systems are urgently needed to improve capacities to prevent famine. To this end, the paper identifies six insights from social‐ecological systems (SES) thinking for understanding and preventing famine. It argues that a state of famine emerges from human–environment interdependencies, complex causality, and non‐linear system dynamics, shaped by history and context. The likelihood of famine can be reduced by strengthening resilience to the diverse stresses and shocks that drive destitution, food insecurity, undernutrition, morbidity, and mortality. SES thinking offers new opportunities to understand the dynamics of famine, diagnose lesser‐known drivers, pinpoint new metrics, ascertain leverage points for intervention, and develop conceptual frameworks to inform policy. SES concepts and methods could also support the development of practical analytical tools to guide decisionmakers on how, where, and when to intervene most effectively and efficiently to strengthen resilience to the drivers of famine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate whether early-life exposure to the Great Famine of 1959–1961 in China was associated with the risk of digestive system cancer. The prospective cohort study involved 17 997 participants from the Kailuan Study (Tangshan, China) that began in 2006. All participants were divided into three groups based on their date of birth. The unexposed group (born from 1 October 1962 to 30 September 1964), fetal-exposed group (born from 1 October 1959 to 30 December 1961), and early-childhood-exposed group (born from 1 October 1956 to 30 December 1958). The Cox proportional hazards model was used to analyze the association between early famine exposure and digestive system cancer. During the mean follow-up period of (10.4 ± 2.2) years, a total of 223 digestive system cancer events occurred. Including 54 cases in the unexposed group (62.14/100 000 person-years), 57 cases in the fetal-exposed group (114.8/100 000 person-years), and 112 cases in the early-childhood-exposure group (122.2/100 000 person-years). After adjusting covariates, compared with the unexposed group, the HR and 95% CI were 1.85 (1.28, 2.69) for participants in the fetal-exposed group and 1.92 (1.38, 2.66) for participants in the early-childhood-exposed group. No interactions were observed in our study. After classifying digestive system cancers, the HR and 95% CI were 2.02 (1.03, 3.97) for colorectal cancer for participants in the fetal-exposed group and 2.55 (1.43, 4.55) for participants in the early-childhood-exposed group. The HR and 95% CI were (1.13, 3.83) of liver cancer for participants in the fetal-exposed group and 1.15 (0.63, 2.10) for participants in the early-childhood-exposed group. Early-life famine exposure was associated with a higher risk of digestive system cancer in adulthood. Fetal-exposed individuals might increase the risk of colorectal cancer and liver cancer, and early childhood-exposed might increase the risk of colorectal cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On August 15, 2021, American military forces withdrew from Kabul, and the sanctioning of Afghanistan began. Marred by the usual problems—ineffective, counterproductive, unwieldy—these sanctions revealed three additional puzzles. First, although grounded in targeted sanctions, they transformed into de facto comprehensive sanctions. Secondly, that transformation was instantaneous and unprompted. Thirdly, a near-famine followed within weeks. I make nested analytical, functional, and explanatory arguments. The analytical argument is that targeted sanctions are best understood not as tools of international coercion but primarily as domestic regulations. The functional argument is that the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) uses tactical and strategic ambiguity to maximize its regulatory reach over financial intuitions, humanitarian aid organizations, and money transfer organizations. The explanatory argument returns to the puzzles. I argue that, without any signal from OFAC, which was the signal, and reflecting OFAC's regulatory domination, when the Taliban took Kabul, the international financial community, humanitarian aid organizations, and remittance providers all dissociated from Afghanistan with immediate effect and particularly acute consequences on food entitlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity has the potential to lead to hunger and famine, which can affect various industries, including the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industry. Despite this, there are very few research studies investigated the effects of these risks on the H&T industry. This lack of research means that the industry is unable to assess the potential impact of food insecurity on the businesses in the industry. Based on this perspective, the current study examines the potential impacts of food insecurity, water stress, and famine risks on the H&T industry. Moreover, this study addresses challenges related to economic sustainability and resilience that have gained importance in the wake of the recent pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In this article, risks associated with food insecurity are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided based on interdisciplinary research and published reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-employment is a field of special importance to developing countries in view of its positive role on socio-economic development. This study exploits a unique nationally representative database using the 1949–1985 China Demographic Data, the 2016 China Labour Force Dynamic Survey, and the 1959–1999 China Drought Disaster Data. Through a difference-in-differences estimation, we reveal that the Great Chinese Famine bear significantly upon individuals' self-employment decisions. Specifically, a 1% increase in famine intensity results in a 3.89% and 2.31% decrease in the probability of self-employment and self-employed entrepreneurs entering the agricultural sector, respectively. Using rainfall as an instrument, we further show that the documented relationship is causal. Overall, we provide strong empirical evidence that famine exposure significantly affects one's self-employment decisions, and can help design policies aiming to promote self-employment and the development of small businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the Irish Famine, this essay argues that Israel's enforced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza during the 2023–24 genocide is a deliberate act that advances the settler-colonial aspirations of the Zionist regime. In addition to preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the author argues that manufacturing food insecurity is part of a long-standing Israeli policy in the besieged enclave, which includes targeting essential infrastructure and other elements of food production. The essay ends with a call on political representatives in both Ireland and the United States to reflect on their own legacy of colonially enforced starvation and to intervene to bring an end to the looming famine in Gaza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the interconnections and interrelations between food, waste, people and state during a series of survival crises in the famines of 1921–3, 1932–3 and 1946–7 in Soviet Ukraine. Owing to grain and food requisitions, the collectivization of agriculture and rationing, as part of the state's growing control over the flow of economic resources from the 1920s to the 1940s, discarded food acquired particular importance for people's survival during these times of extremes. Focusing on both individual and institutional levels of waste production and regulation, this study explores the role of food waste in the survival practices of the starving and traces the development of their individual resourcefulness and interconnectedness with wider social and natural environments. The article explores different types of food waste, including husks, leftover food, carrion and spoiled and rotten food and the spaces of its collection. By 'following' the traces of waste in urban and rural landscapes, including, among others, dumpsters, slaughterhouses, cattle cemeteries and railway stations, the article brings into focus the critical changes in human–food, human–waste and human–nature relationships in times of extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the General Baptist mission in Orissa, India, from the 1860s to the 1880s, with particular reference to the way women who served within the mission fulfilled a role in teaching and encouraging girls and women, especially by setting up schooling. The challenges of a time of desperate famine, with many orphans being cared for, are examined. The General Baptist mission worked with other bodies, notably and crucially with the interdenominational Female Education Society. A major aim was that, through the work of the female teachers, local teachers would be equipped. The argument here is that there was integrity in what was performed, and thus, this article offers an alternative to interpretations that dismiss the validity of the mission endeavours. The Orissa mission continued on beyond the 1880s, with wider fellowship eventually happening through the Church of North India. This study does not go beyond the 1880s as that would introduce a new phase with the amalgamation in 1891 of the General and Particular Baptists and their overseas missionary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks why the victims of the 1944–45 famine in Indonesia's main island of Java are largely missing from Indonesia's public memory and historiography. It surveys relevant studies, to conclude that there is no consensus on the human toll of the famine. The article then traces the origins of an initial estimate of four million mentioned by Indonesia's authorities to data on mortality and births uncovered in late 1945. It discusses the outcomes of a recent study that analysed these data to re-estimate excess deaths of, respectively, 0.7 and 1.2 million during 1944 and 1945. The difference with the initial estimate is that it also included unborn children and an unsubstantiated approximation of victims in 1946. The article analyses the likely reasons why the millions of victims of the famine went missing from Indonesia's public memory and historiography during the 1950s and 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of the commemoration of the Kazakh famine of the 1930s by analyzing the commemoration strategies employed by visual artists in the period from 2012 until 2019. It identifies two types of art production on the topic—governmental public art, which avoids politicizing the famine and reads it as the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the Soviet period, and art projects by independent artists who call the Kazakh famine a genocide. Although these two positions seem to be ideologically opposed on a rhetorical level, the article shows that the difference in the visual language used to express these opposite political positions is not always as pronounced as one would expect, and proposes several explanations for this incoherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Evidence has shown that early‐life famine exposure and obesity in adulthood are independently associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, few studies had revealed the combined effect of these risk factors. Methods: Two sets of groups from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were selected. The fetal‐exposure group born in 1959–1961 from 2011 wave (N = 958) and nonexposure group born in 1963–1965 from 2015 wave (N = 1540) were selected as Comparison 1. The early childhood‐exposure group born in 1955–1957 from 2011 wave (N = 1510) and fetal‐exposure group born in 1959–1961 from 2015 wave (N = 943) were Comparison 2. Logistic regressions were applied to examine the associations of different famine exposure periods and obesity patterns with T2DM risk. Results: Compared with nonexposed participants without central overweight/obesity in adulthood, central overweight/obesity in adulthood together with nonexposure (odds ratio [OR]: 1.89, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.19–3.00) or fetal‐exposure (OR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.23–3.23) was associated with higher risks of T2DM. Compared with the early childhood‐exposure group, the fetal‐exposed participants showed higher risks of T2DM (OR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.02–1.66). The coexistence of fetal famine exposure and central overweight/obesity in adulthood was associated with higher risks of T2DM (OR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.19–2.79). Consistent associations were observed among males and participants from less severely affected areas. Conclusions: In conclusion, central overweight/obesity in adulthood is associated with the increased risk of T2DM, but the effect of early‐life famine exposure is not very clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Persian Famine of 1917–1919 is one of the greatest calamities in the history of Iran. While some scholarly work has explored the causes and dynamics of the famine, less attention has been paid to its memorialisation. This paper aims to understand how the Great Persian Famine is remembered – or not – in public and personal spheres in Iran. Discussing the historical events that have been silenced, neglected or publicly recognised and commemorated before and after the Islamic Revolution, the paper focusses on the processes that hinder public and private memorialising of hunger violence. Drawing on existing literature, personal diaries, artistic representations, and interviews with persons whose parents or grandparents experienced the Great Persian Famine, we discuss why it has not figured prominently in the national historiography or commemorative practices, except during a brief period (2008–2013) when it found its way into the prevailing political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Famine theory has overlooked the role of memory in constituting the social meaning of famine. This seminal collection of papers restores the cross-disciplinary study of famines, foregrounding social anthropology, history and comparative politics, in the question of how famines are understood by those in the afflicted societies, and how memories and meanings are shaped by social and political context. The collection plays an important role in focussing attention on transitional justice mechanisms for starvation crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bengal famine of 1943 is one of the most catastrophic and violent outcomes of British colonial rule in India. Recently, there has been a surge in understanding the famine from an anti-colonial perspective. However, the relation between the impact of the famine and caste-based subalternities has not received adequate attention. The immediate concerns that arise with the task of filling this gap are ethical-methodological and narrative: even from the lens of caste-subaltern consciousness, how does one arrive at and share stories of the famine, and can they ever be 'recovered' and 'represented'? This paper narrates the story of fieldwork-filming, carried out as part of ongoing research in artistic practice, which attempts to understand and engage with caste-subaltern (especially Dalit) experiences of the Bengal famine of 1943 and to explore methodologically how these experiences can be creatively and collaboratively imagined and negotiated. The paper proposes that there is a need to shift away from 'recovery' and 'representation' of the 'authentic' caste-subaltern experiences of the famine and towards negotiated imagination. To illustrate and make a case for this shift, this paper provides a detailed description and analysis of methodological processes and their implications that emerged during the fieldwork-filming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of social media in the memorialisation of the Biafra famine. It argues that given the absence of Biafra famine narratives in the official post-Civil War memory spaces in Nigeria, social media has emerged as a site where silence and hegemonic discourses around the Biafra famine are disrupted, contested and unmoored. Thus, the study contributes to the contemporary debates on digital media and memorialisation of mass atrocities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of justice and accountability have long overlooked the death and suffering resulting from famines. This article examines how various domestic and international actors involved in the Red Terror Trials (1992–2010) framed the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia and what explains the absence of famine-related cases from the trials. Based on archival sources and interviews, the article discusses how the Red Terror Trials offered an opportunity to prosecute famine-related cases. The study shows, however, that despite the framing of the famine as 'political' and an act of crime by various actors, the Red Terror Trials were silent about the famine. One explanation is the difficulty of establishing a legal case based on famine-related casualties, coupled with a lack of incentive as there were already enough criminal cases to prosecute former Dergue regime officials. The complicated political history of the famine and its causes, which might implicate various domestic and international actors and not just the Dergue officials, can also explain the absence of the famine-related cases from the trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its devastating impact on the population, the 1977–1979 famine in East Timor scarcely features in global studies of hunger. This article traces how the famine was dealt with in international politics during the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999), and in Timor-Leste during the United Nations administration and as an independent nation-state. The East Timor case extends our knowledge of the workings of conflict-induced famines, provides insights into the attempts by transnational activists and diasporic actors to mobilise international action on crises such as famine, and examines the options for dealing with famine and its community-wide legacies in post-conflict societies including under a transitional justice model. By analysing the activities of the country's transitional justice institution, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação, CAVR) and its successor, the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC), as well as grassroots initiatives, the article outlines some of the challenges of delivering justice for famine victims and survivors in post-conflict societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature echoes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s official explanation of the Great Leap Famine (1959–1961) to argue that the Party survived the legitimacy crisis posed by the famine by blaming the weather. While several have suggested that the CCP held the local cadres responsible for generating the famine, little evidence had been gathered to show how this was done. This article reconciles the above arguments by asserting that the CCP, by exploiting the urban–rural informational asymmetry, employed a dual propaganda approach that combined an urban explanation that blamed the weather with a more important rural strategy that admitted the famine's man-made nature but shifted the blame onto local leaders, to direct the responsibility away from the Party centre. By leveraging local government archives in Henan Province's Nanyang Prefecture, this study analyses how the Party propagated the rural explanation through the Rural Party Rectification Movement (1960–1961) to placate immediate peasantry discontent and reconstruct long-run famine memories. Interviews conducted in 2021 show that the re-engineering of the famine narrative contributed to the peasants' distrust of local cadres. This perception persisted over time, at least partially affecting the peasants' willingness to cooperate with local policies in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the first city-states established in Mesopotamia, grains are the most basic comestibles that determine the political and economic process. Grain famine, which emerged due to natural and political factors, led to the collapse of states. B.C. The 4.2 kiloyear event that started around 2200 BC caused the geographical structure of Mesopotamia to change. The migrations that followed this climate event also changed the political structure of Mesopotamia. The settled and nomadic societies in northern Mesopotamia migrated south due to extreme droughts. Although the societies in Southern Mesopotamia continued to use the river resources for a while, agricultural lands became aridity due to salinization as a result of continuous irrigation with river waters and grain famine occurred. It is seen that these famines continued during the establishment of the Third Dynasty of Ur. In order to prevent famines, agricultural lands were fallow and drainage systems were developed. However, the population pressure that emerged in the cities due to the continued Amorites migrations required continuous cultivation on agricultural lands. With these grain famines in the Third Dynasty of Ur, the tax system was broken, the rations could not be paid with barley, and the number of livestock offered as offerings to temples decreased. In addition, as a result of the overvaluation of barley against silver, the supply-demand balance deteriorated and the kingdom collapsed economically. After these developments, Elam attacks started and some cities affiliated to the kingdom declared their independence. As a result of all these events, the Third Dynasty of Ur collapsed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal Impact Statement: The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference emphasised the need to modify practices that negatively impact biodiversity and food security in the context of global change. Following Madagascar's drought‐induced famine, our systematic review supports the theory that grasslands of the Malagasy Central Highland that are subjected to human‐lit fires are anthropogenically derived. Furthermore, these overly frequent fires that characterise much of the Malagasy Central Highland grasslands select poorly palatable grasses. Given the reliance on pastoralism as insurance against crop failure in Madagascar, fire‐dependent practices that degrade rangeland emerge as a threat to food security and biodiversity. Education can mitigate against future humanitarian crises. Summary: Food insecurity is greatest in countries where impacts of global change are predicted to be severe. Many, like Madagascar, rely on livestock‐based pastoralism (and consequently palatable rangelands) for insurance against natural disasters and crop failure. It is recognised that derived grasslands can impact climate and biodiversity. Furthermore, the well‐established palatability‐flammability trade‐off predicts that overly‐frequent fires select increasingly unpalatable, fire‐adapted grassland. The drought‐induced Malagasy famine of 2021 highlights the need to identify factors that threaten food security. Given the ubiquitous practice of rangeland preparation through annual, landscape‐scale human‐lit fires, we evaluate whether Malagasy grasslands are derived and then test for fire‐driven selection of increasingly degraded and unpalatable rangelands across Madagascar's largest grassland system, the Malagasy Central Highland (MCH). We conducted a systematic literature review, evaluating for a palatability‐flammability trade‐off, by determining dominant Malagasy grass species, and then applying functional traits, and palatability ratings to these species. Data were extracted using a suite of relevant search terms, and of 1977 studies identified, 145 were directly relevant to the questions posed. Evidence from the review is compelling for much of the Malagasy highland grassland being derived. Furthermore, Malagasy dominant grass species are fire‐adapted with poor forage‐value, suggesting current burning practices negatively impact both biodiversity and pastoralism. Decreasing rangeland palatability caused by human‐lit fires in a society suffering food insecurity emphasises the need to re‐evaluate pastoralist burning practices. Identifying optimal fire frequencies can avert breaching fire‐induced tipping points to rangeland palatability and the humanitarian crises that may follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security is discussed with a particular focus on the decades either side of 1300, years characterised by poor weather and significant fluctuations in food availability, evident especially in the varied performance of grain harvests. Examining access to food and the vulnerability of the food supply in a period of particular pressure on food resources allows reflection on stresses on food availability in these decades as well as the range of approaches that individuals and institutions could employ in seeking to respond to them. The article discusses relative entitlement and contemporary perceptions of the same. While its focus is upon rural society and the experience of the peasantry, there will necessarily be some reference to the urban context, which cannot be separated from the experience of the countryside, and the attempts of institutions such as government to respond to issues relevant to food security in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bread was the most important item of diet in medieval England. Cereals were consumed in boiled form, but bread was preferred. Bread was not just convenient, but was also symbolic of well-being. Although breads were made from other cereals and legumes, wheat bread occupied a prime position, and in particular white wheat bread was regarded highly by consumers. Reasons are given for these attitudes, including the practical advantage that white bread was an efficient source of energy and was cost-effective. The political management of the corn trade and bread baking through such regulations as the assize of bread was intended to prevent unrest, but occasionally consumers organised 'food riots'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the potential of educational materials to forge and shape the collective memory, this article analyses the representations of the Francoist Hunger Years (1939–1952) in recent history textbooks for secondary schools by a wide range of publishers. The main thesis of the paper is that while there are textbooks that provide a complex narrative of the hunger experiences, others – even some of the most recent ones – depict the period in an oversimplified and historiographically outdated way and fail to address various social perspectives. This article also argues that it is possible to detect the persistence of the official Francoist discourse on the years of hunger in some textbooks that continue to implicitly perpetuate the distortion and oblivion the Franco dictatorship tried to impose on the famine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's health suffers due to unhealthy eating, and high inflation in the domestic economy due to the loss of purchasing power, since access to adequate and acceptable food is more difficult today. The methodology uses the UNE 166006:2006 standard, which defines Technological Surveillance as the "organized, selective and permanent process of capturing information. With the entry of the new government, public policies should provide a favorable environment for the development of different agro-industries with greater added value, which encourages the creation of new jobs, especially in the agroindustrial sector of our country. Non-experimental research with a trend design was carried out where multiple indicators with evident changes in recent years were analyzed. There is a trade balance deficit that affects indicators of the food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The early life stage is critical for the gut microbiota establishment and development. We aimed to investigate the lifelong impact of famine exposure during early life on the adult gut microbial ecosystem and examine the association of famine-induced disturbance in gut microbiota with type 2 diabetes. Methods: We profiled the gut microbial composition among 11,513 adults (18–97 years) from three independent cohorts and examined the association of famine exposure during early life with alterations of adult gut microbial diversity and composition. We performed co-abundance network analyses to identify keystone taxa in the three cohorts and constructed an index with the shared keystone taxa across the three cohorts. Among each cohort, we used linear regression to examine the association of famine exposure during early life with the keystone taxa index and assessed the correlation between the keystone taxa index and type 2 diabetes using logistic regression adjusted for potential confounders. We combined the effect estimates from the three cohorts using random-effects meta-analysis. Results: Compared with the no-exposed control group (born during 1962–1964), participants who were exposed to the famine during the first 1000 days of life (born in 1959) had consistently lower gut microbial alpha diversity and alterations in the gut microbial community during adulthood across the three cohorts. Compared with the no-exposed control group, participants who were exposed to famine during the first 1000 days of life were associated with consistently lower levels of keystone taxa index in the three cohorts (pooled beta − 0.29, 95% CI − 0.43, − 0.15). Per 1-standard deviation increment in the keystone taxa index was associated with a 13% lower risk of type 2 diabetes (pooled odds ratio 0.87, 95% CI 0.80, 0.93), with consistent results across three individual cohorts. Conclusions: These findings reveal a potential role of the gut microbiota in the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis, deepening our understanding about the etiology of type 2 diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public commemoration and performance are closely bound up with time, place and social arenas, the memorialization of the past serving a variety of goals. This article considers the memorialization of the experience of the famine that blighted Ireland and northern Scotland during the Victorian period, and focuses on Glasgow, one of Scotland's major cities and the destination of many famine migrants. It explores the instrumental use of the famine past in the public sphere in a city long haunted by the specter of sectarianism and considers the impact of the choices made by different collectives in the process of heritage making and remembrance of uncomfortable/difficult aspects of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somalia has a long history of famine and humanitarian crisis. This article focuses on the years 2008–2020, during which governance and aid practices changed substantially and which include three crisis periods. The article examines whether and how governance analysed as a political marketplace can help explain Somalia's repeated humanitarian crises and the manipulation of response. We argue that between 2008 and 2011 the political marketplace was a violent competitive oligopoly which contributed to famine, but that from 2012 a more collusive, informal political compact resulted in a status quo which avoided violent conflict or famine in 2017 and which functioned to keep external resources coming in. At the same time, this political arrangement benefits from the maintenance of a large group of displaced people in permanent precarity as a source of aid and labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a strong authoritarian state, what mechanisms hold political elites accountable and contain the state's predatory tendencies? We examine China's Great Famine of 1958–1961 to understand the variation of predatory behaviors across Chinese provinces. By exploring the Chinese Communist Revolution history and probing into over four hundred biographies of political elites in the newly founded communist state, we first document the revolutionary legacies on state building particularly political power configurations at the provincial level. We then employ a generalized difference-in-differences design and find that local representation—the extent to which local cadres were represented in the provincial authorities—enhanced provincial leaders' accountability to the general public and thus was associated with lower mortality rates, whereas central connections—the political ties between provincial leaders and powerful political elites in the central state—reinforced the accountability to higher-level political leaders and were associated with higher mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass disease and starvation in the princely state of Travancore during the Second World War claimed some 90,000 lives. However, this episode has never received much prominence, especially when compared to the simultaneous crisis in Bengal. It is, in many ways, forgotten. Instead, Travancore's wartime food management apparatus appears in some accounts as a success story. How did this happen? Integration into the world economy, the reordering of a rigid social structure, and popular political pressures on an autocratic princely regime created a unique set of conditions that left Travancore vulnerable to food scarcity and conflict during the Second World War. A particularly draconian princely regime that suppressed civil liberties prevented the gravity of the situation from being understood. This culminated in vastly unequal suffering and disease-related deaths. But the story is not merely one of despair. The Indian communists took advantage of war conditions to bring together agricultural and factory labourers and contribute to improving the food situation in this 'People's War', while mainstream nationalists sought to obstruct the war effort and have the British 'quit' India. Wartime activities would shape the unique post-colonial politics of what became the state of Kerala in 1956. Intervening at the intersection of the historiographies of food and the princely states, this article adds a regional perspective to the nation-centric social history of the Second World War in South Asia. Hunger was a constitutive experience of this period across various parts of India, but the post-colonial political legacies of war could be regionally distinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1826 and the six years following, Denmark underwent a severe mortality crisis. The conventional understanding is that it was caused by a malaria epidemic, although recent literature has challenged this. This study examines the demographic and clinical features of this mortality crisis to understand it further. The crisis began in Langeland in 1826 and spread throughout most of Zealand and Lolland-Falster in the following years with a dramatic culmination in the autumn of 1831. In addition to a lethal measles and scarlet fever epidemics in the spring of 1829, the affected regions experienced returning lethal epidemics during harvest in this period. The complex of symptoms during these epidemics resembles enteric infections such as typhoid fever, paratyphoid or E. coli, and typhus fever. In the same period, Denmark also underwent a subsistence crisis from several years with crop failures. The mortality crisis, and namely the harvest epidemics, was probably related to this subsistence crisis. A scarcity of fresh food meant that the rural population ate contaminated food products, making them ill. The crisis thereby exemplifies the synergetic relationship between epidemics and subsistence crises that were common before the breakthrough of the demographic transition in the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the recognition of an original situation of helplessness and dependence on the other to which the child is structurally subjected, it is pointed out that the appeasement of hunger – considered a fundamental need – culminates in the consolidation of alterity as a place of reference and addressing, in the erogenization of the own body, the constitution of the Self, and the potentialization of desire’s becoming. Therefore, hunger and the failure of the appeal to the other are potentially traumatic experiences that produce serious and lasting social and psychological vulnerabilities. Thence, frustrating the expectations of hunger’s satiety, especially in childhood, produce a kind of moral pain, which is correlated to the weakening of trust the other. With Josué de Castro, the inescapable political aspect of hunger, which is merged with its psychological and physical implications, is reinforced. From his ideas, the existence of a historical intention of the Brazilian state to ignore, deny, and even provoke hunger is emphasized. As a keen reader of Freud, the author uses psychoanalytic drive theory as a conceptual operator to think about hunger. Following Castro's contribution, Ferenczi is brought up to support the intentional and political nature of hunger trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2021 conflict in Tigray (north Ethiopia), crop cultivation has been hampered by warfare. Oxen have been looted and killed, farm inputs and tools destroyed by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Farmers felt vulnerable out in the open with their oxen. To produce, farmers evaluated risks involved with ploughing and organised lookouts. Overall, a large part of the land had been tilled in difficult conditions, and crops sown that require minimal management, without fertiliser, what led to low yields. True Colour Composite images, produced from Sentinel satellite imagery show that smallholder irrigation schemes were operational. There was a shift from commercial crops to cereals. The situation in western Tigray was particular, as there has been ethnic cleansing of the population and often the 2020 rainfed crops had even not been harvested. Overall, our findings show that the Tigrayan smallholder farming system is resilient, thanks to community self-organisation, combining common strategies of agrarian societies in wartime: spatio-temporal shift in agricultural activities to avoid the proximity with soldiers and shifts in crop types. Rather unique is the relying on communal aid, while the blockade of the Tigray region made that outmigration and off-farm income were no options for the farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The present study aimed to explore the effect of modification of socioeconomic status (SES) on the association between famine exposure in early life and osteoporosis in adulthood via the baseline data from the Henan Rural cohort study. Methods: A total of 2669 exposed to famine participants were selected from the Henan Rural cohort, and the questionnaires, physical examination and bone mineral density measurement were completed. Specific birth years were used to define five groups: the fetal exposed group, early‐childhood exposed group, mid‐childhood exposed group, late‐childhood exposed group and unexposed group. And the age‐matched control group was a combination of the unexposed group and late‐childhood exposed group. Multivariable logistic regression models were utilised to analyse the association of famine exposure in early life with osteoporosis in adulthood. Results: The prevalence rates of osteoporosis of participants exposed to famine during the fetal period, early‐childhood, mid‐childhood and the age‐matched group were 21.67%, 25.76%, 23.90% and 18.14%, respectively. The adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of participants suffering from famine during the fetal period, early‐childhood and mid‐childhood versus age‐matched group were 1.19 (0.82–1.73), 1.40 (1.04–1.88) and 1.57 (1.16–2.13), respectively. The female participants yielded consistent results. The risk of osteoporosis was higher in more severe famine eara. Moreover, an attenuated effect of early life famine exposure on osteoporosis was observed in female participants with high SES. Conclusions: Exposure to famine in early life showed a sex‐specific association with an increased risk of osteoporosis in adulthood and the severity of famine may exacerbate this association. In addition, the risk could be modified by SES. Highlights: Henan province was one of the most severe regions affected by the famine.Famine exposure in early life and the severity of famine were associated with a higher risk of osteoporosisin women.Improving the socioeconomic status may be an effective method to protect the bone health of women undergoing malnutrition in early life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trajectories of public memory and memorialisation of the famines of the 1930s have been vastly different for Kazakhstan and Ukraine, despite the common causation of these national tragedies. Many of the disparities between memorialisation of these events emerge from these nations' different post--collapse trajectories. A not insignificant amount of vacillation on memory policy occurred as both nations grappled with the past, owing to the various orientations of national leadership and popular sentiment as contexts shifted. While Ukraine sought to forge an independent path quickly post--collapse, Kazakhstan maintained close relations with Russia until recently. Changes to Kazakhstan's foreign policy spurred, in part, by the Russian full--scale invasion of Ukraine have in turn prompted a revaluation of famine memory. This article seeks to illustrate the complexity of nations coming to terms with their Soviet pasts alongside new domestic and international concerns and illustrate the value of comparative analysis of famine memory through a post--colonial lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Franco regime imposed a rationing system, justified by the international context and the destruction caused by the war. Until the early 1950s, in Spain, diet was affected by the scarcity of basic products and the inability to pay for them with the wages of those years, as well as by difficulties in circulation and distribution, partly mitigated - or aggravated by high prices - through the «black market». In this article, using a «micro» approach, we explain the attitudes of the first provincial authorities (civil governors) and mayors of towns, based on their own official documental sources which dealt with topics related to the issue of supplies, in their directives, letters, regulations, punishments, and internal reports, thus, offering a particular portrait of an Andalusian province that can be extrapolated to the rest of the Spanish territory. We also show the material and social consequences of this policy on the population of the province of Málaga (Spain), and the reaction of the citizens to the rationing system, with a deployment of survival strategies and forms of daily resistance that characterized the decade of the 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the food practices of the farmer population located in the forest-steppe region of Ukraine during the artificial famine that took place between the fall of 1932 and the spring of 1933, known as the Holodomor. For the study, forty archived testimonies were analysed from a phenomenological perspective to understand the meaning survivors gave to the ingestion of plant and animal-based substitute foods. The study identified that during and after the famine, the Ukrainian farmer population ceased to consider eating as a social and political event that kept them united under a shared national consciousness, and instead became the means by which they obtained the energy necessary for physical stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, the effect of troubles and difficulties which may occur in the situations of people due to hunger, famine and natural disasters on the provisions of Islamic law will be examined. We have convinced that this research will be useful since famine and hunger situations in some Islamic countries have undeniable dimension. Hunger has been one of the greatest concerns of mankind throughout history. Along with the poverty, misery and death, hunger has been referred to as one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. Hunger, famine and natural disasters are facts that occur due to the internal and external dynamics of nature and outside the human will or with the human factor. And they are also facts that deeply affect human life. Hunger, famine and natural disasters have been events that have a cruel effect on all living and nonliving beings since the beginning of the world. From a social perspective, many problems arise due to lack of food security, hunger, national unrest and wars. In fact, if used without waste, the Earth's resources are sufficient to feed far more than the current world population. The productivity of agricultural production has increased in incredible measures due to developments after the industrial revolution, such as the development of mechanization, fertilization, spraying and irrigation facilities in agriculture. Although cultivable land is limited on Earth, the amount of harvested product from a unit of land can be greatly increased through productivity gains. The subject of this research is to determine the effects of disasters such as hunger and famine on Islamic law during the period of the Prophet and in the following years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ancient world, cisterns were often a source of life for the community. However, in the book of Jeremiah, they are associated with death. In Jeremiah 38, the prophet is cast into a pit, where he is left to die of starvation. Three chapters later, Ishmael uses a cistern as a graveyard. Moreover, in both accounts, food plays an important role. Jeremiah 38 is situated within the context of a famine, where "there is no longer any bread in the city." Jeremiah is saved from the cistern so that he will "not starve to death." Conversely, the story of Jeremiah 41 unfolds in the seventh month, a time associated with harvest, when returning Jews bring "an abundance of wine and summer fruits" to Mizpah. Also not to be missed is the travesty of murdering Gedaliah and his cohorts at Gedaliah's banqueting table. This article explores how the motif of the cistern functions as a symbol of death in Jeremiah 38 and 41. It argues that despite the fulfillment of God's promise of restoration (as evidenced in the provision of food), the people still choose to embrace their own "cisterns." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]