Oona Morrow

Assistant Professor
Rural Sociology Group
Wageningen University & Research
Wageningen, Netherlands

Other Affiliations

SHARECITY, Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin

AMS Institute

Degrees

PhD, Geography, Clark University
MA, Geography, Clark University
BA, Urban Studies, The New School

Research Interests

  • Diverse and Community Economies
  • Commons and the Commoning
  • Urban Agriculture, Sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods
  • Food waste and food sharing 
  • Gender, Care, and Social Reproduction
  • Food policy, land use, and law

My research is broadly concerned with the economic and environmental politics of everyday life, a theme I have engaged through research on diverse economies, urban agriculture, household sustainability, gender and work, food security, and rural poverty. Through this work, I explore and actively participate in the processes through which everyday food and sustainability practices become institutionalized by organizations, and supported by policy and planning.

My Ph.D. research examined the gender relations and diverse economic practices of urban homesteaders in Boston. Urban homesteading is a sustainable lifestyle movement that promotes self-provisioning practices such as urban gardening, food preservation, and chicken and bee keeping as a means of economic and environmental resilience. The project draws on ethnographic and action research to explore the different kinds of self-provisioning practices in which urban homesteaders engage; the social, cultural, and economic relations that such practices are embedded in and enabled by; and the impact of these practices across various urban scales. 

My postdoctoral research with SHARECITY investigates opportunities for sharing things, spaces, and skills across the food system, from production and consumption, to food rescue and redistribution, to cooking, eating and composting. As a member of this team, I have engaged in ethnographic research in Berlin and New York, and contributed to the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological development of the project, which seeks to bridge the gap between previous research on alternative food networks, emergency food, food waste, and the sharing economy.