How Black and Brown Women Sustain Global Food Systems and Care Economies

Eighty percent of the world is fed by Black and Brown women whose vital agricultural, ecological, and care labor remains largely uncompensated and pushed to the margins of international economic policy. A comprehensive analysis highlights how feminist economic frameworks and decolonial thought challenge historical injustices and corporate-driven globalization by placing social reproduction at the center of human societies.

Reimagining Economic Governance Beyond Neoliberalism

The study examines feminist frameworks that center the labor of Black and Brown women in sustaining food systems, ecologies, and knowledge traditions. Rather than treating these contributions as secondary, the research available on the Transforming Economies book chapter published in 2027 argues that care work and social reproduction must form the foundation of economic governance. The author explores how globalized market-led economics and structural adjustment policies have systematically displaced women and increased their unpaid labor burdens, reproducing colonial patterns of extraction.

The Legacy of Structural Adjustment and Gendered Violence

During the 1980s and 1990s, structural adjustment programs forced states to withdraw from public provisioning, transferring the responsibility of survival onto households and women. This market-oriented restructuring undermined public healthcare, education, and social support systems, leaving communities vulnerable to crises. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed these systemic vulnerabilities, illustrating how global economic architectures rely on underpaid or unpaid care work while prioritizing profit and extractivism over human well-being and ecological sustainability.

Resistance, Ecofeminism, and the Care Complex

Across the Global South, grassroots movements and feminist scholars have organized alternative pathways against corporate dominance and green colonialism. Ecofeminist analyses connect the exploitation of nature with the subjugation of women, rejecting technocratic climate solutions that displace indigenous populations. Instead, these movements advocate for food sovereignty, land rights, and the protection of common resources, pointing toward transformative economic models grounded in collective dignity and reparational justice.

The research was published in Transforming Economies on January 1, 2027.