Theorizing food insecurity: Building a livelihood vulnerability framework for researching food insecurity

Food insecurity and increasing impoverishment of the masses in developing countries constitute a challenge for social scientists, whose theories have tried to catch up with the enormous challenges of diversity, dynamism and the impacts of the forces of 'glocalisation'. This article reviews the efforts in the social sciences towards understanding food insecurity and suggests a framework incorporating dynamism and diversity in rural communities in the research process. Structural changes affecting peasant economies and peasant responses make existing general theories inappropriate without a contextual treatment. Insights from existing theories are used to construct a livelihood vulnerability framework for researching and understanding food insecurity in rural areas.