Beth Cloughton

Research Fellow in Food Systems Transformation (Grassroots & Community)

beth.cloughton@ed.ac.uk

17 Buccleuch Place

uk.linkedin.com/in/beth-amelia-cloughton-77548a127

Background

Qualifications

FdA Fine Art (Leeds College of Art); BA Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge); MSc Global Health (University of Glasgow); PhD (University of Glasgow).

Research Interests

A non-exhaustive overview of my research interests are:

Inclusive, reciprocal, and creative methodologies
Feminist approaches to research
Sociological and Anthropological visions of food (particularly relating to consuming)
Framings and relations of sustainability, ethics, and food consumption, especially 'quiet' and subversive approaches
Just Transitions
Alternative knowledge production
Solidarity, mutuality, and more-than-capitalist exchange networks

My approach to research is to clarify and support inclusive social change. I work collaboratively, interdisciplinarily, platform the plurality of knowledges, and I am deeply critical of neoliberalist frameworks.

Overview

I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Social Anthropology at Trinity College, University of Cambridge in 2017. During this time, I was involved with the Social Anthropology Society (partaking in the first 'anthropology of food' paper), and with the University's Women's Campaign. I founded the first Feminist Society at Trinity, and was also part of the Access team, which developed greater opportunities for state-schooled pupils to attend the University.

I moved to Scotland in 2018 to begin my Masters of Global Health, undertaking classes on Policy, Health Inequalities, and Methodologies. I collaborated with a grassroots organisation which supported people navigating the UK Home Office to explore notions of community wellbeing through the lens of food. During the Masters, I worked part-time (2018-2019) with the feminist organisation 'Young Women's Movement', supporting a project coordinated between Scottish Parliament and the charity to encourage greater political participation and confidence for young women in Scotland. In 2022, the charity listed me as one of their '30 under 30' Women in Scotland.

In 2019, I was awarded an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, via SGSSS) scholarship to undertake a collaborative PhD with a community organisation in the East End of Glasgow. This PhD explored dynamics, relations, and framings of food insecurity and sustainability, with a particular focus on consumer ethics. I developed a multi-method, reciprocal ethnographic approach, building on my interest in inclusive, participatory and reciprocal methodologies. Alongside the PhD, I was also a co-director of Glasgow Community Food Network (2020-2022). In August 2024, I passed my Viva with no corrections and was invited to be on the board of the community organisation following my period of research and volunteering in the Food Hub for four years. During the PhD, I was awarded 'Best Research Environment' (2020) following the development of a peer-to-peer mentoring scheme with my colleage, Dr Hadiono. In 2021, I secured a place on the 'Young Investigators Training Program', coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano. I was hosted by the University of Palermo to participate in the Urban Architecture Department to explore precarity, urbanisation, and food. In 2022, I was further awarded 'Citizenship Engagement' for my external outreach and volunteering (such as with Simon Homeless Project in their free period programme).

I held various positions at the University of Glasgow during my PhD, such as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for Qualitative Methods courses (2022; 2023), as a Research Assistant for a Nuffield-funded project on “Women in Multiple Low-paid Employment: Pathways Between Work, Care and Health” (2022); a Research Assistant providing a review of action-based research approaches to social equity (2022); a Research Assistant exploring structural racism and its impact on health communication (2023); and a Research Assistant interviewing members of a community-based organisation about change (2024).

Over the course of 2020-2024, I also paused my PhD several times to hold a series of external research positions. In 2021, I was a Community Researcher with Scotland's leading anti-poverty charity, the Poverty Alliance. In this role, I explored the lived-experiences of social security during the pandemic with families and individuals in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde. The research team collaboratively wrote a chapter reflecting on this work. This was published alongside 13 other chapters. Together, this book was awarded by the jury of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) in cooperation with Yale University Global Justice Program, Book of the Year Award (Edited Book) 2023.

In 2022, I was hired as Research Associate for the Poverty Alliance in partnership with Scottish Women's Budget Group, to coordinate co-designed diary methods with eight marginalised women in Scotland experiencing the cost-of-living crisis. In 2023, I was then hired by the Scottish Women's Budget Group as a freelance researcher, producing a series of papers on the Feminist Just Transition. I subsequently became part of the voluntary arm of the charity, in their Policy and Advocacy Group (2023-).

In 2022 too, I was a food programmer for Civic House. In this role, I supported the reopening of the canteen, to award-winning chefs 'Parveens', and developed the annual food markets at the site.

In 2024, I was a Researcher at the University of Leeds, with a policy-impact funded project based at Kirkgate Market. We worked with Kirkgate Market to explore sustainability perspectives with traders to understand opportunities for 'net-zero' goals produced by Leeds City Council.

Conferencs and Podcasts

I have presented at several international conferences, such as: