Agnese Cretella

Agnese Cretella is a social scientist whose research is focused on a mesh between Food and Urban Studies. Her academic focus revolves around urban food governance – a topic she deepened by examining the emergence of food strategies, policies, ventures, social and cultural movements – and new urban developments in cities. She is particularly interested in exploring the dynamics of injustice around food and how these convert into the practice of urban life.

These dynamics include but are not limited to: the interplay between food and city-marketing, gentrification processes, intra-urban competition, smart cities and the creative class. She empirically explored these themes while working towards her PhD at the Department of Political Science of the University of Amsterdam, part of which has already been published in peer‐reviewed international journals. Prior to the University of Amsterdam, she was granted a Marie Curie Fellowship at Wageningen University within the EU funded, research-training project “PUREFOOD: Urban, peri-urban and regional food dynamics: towards an integrated and territorial approach to food”.

Her professional background includes working as a researcher for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome and for various food-related NGOs in London. Her key role at SHARECITY is to lead research on the governance of urban food sharing from an international policy analysis perspective.