NEWS
NEWS
Call for Papers – Hybrid Conference
Nourishing the Socialist Bloc: Food, Health, and Environment after 1945
26–27 November 2026
‘George Barițiu’ Institute of History & Romanian Academy of Sciences, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
In the second half of the twentieth century, socialist states launched some of the most ambitious projects to reshape the relationship between society and nature. Food, health, and the environment became key arenas where the promises and contradictions of state‑led modernization were most visible. Postwar agricultural expansion—through collectivization, mechanization, irrigation, chemical inputs, and the institutionalization of scientific expertise—sought to secure food supplies, improve nutrition, reduce disease, and produce healthier, more productive citizens. Yet these same interventions generated new vulnerabilities. Intensified agriculture increased exposure to pesticides, fertilizers, industrial pollutants, and food contaminants. From the 1960s onward, environmental scientists highlighted the ecological and health impacts of chemical-intensive farming, including soil erosion, water pollution, toxic residues, and occupational hazards. At the same time, rapid industrialization and urbanization transformed everyday life and dietary practices, often leading to rising rates of chronic non‑communicable diseases. Emerging epidemiological research linked new consumption patterns to cardiovascular illness, obesity, diabetes, and other long‑term health risks.
These developments forced socialist policymakers to reconsider what constituted a “healthy lifestyle,” to reassess earlier narratives of nutritional progress, and to confront the tension between individual well‑being and the productivity imperatives of planned economies. While shaped by the institutions and growth views of state socialism, these transformations were part of broader postwar developments that transcended political and ideological boundaries. Starting with the 1960s, East-Central European experts and policymakers engaged with international debates on nutrition, public health, agricultural productivity, environmental protection, and demographic change through a range of transnational scientific and institutional networks, including the ILO, WHO, FAO, the World Bank, and COMECON. Debates over protein consumption, food quality, preventive medicine, pesticides, environmental contamination, and population growth linked East-Central Europe to global discussions on food security and human health.
The conference aims to contextualize East-Central Europe within broader global and Cold War narratives related to development, nutrition science, environmental management, and agricultural modernization by exploring how socialist societies addressed the intertwined issues of food, health, and environmental sustainability.
Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
Food, nutrition science, and public health policies in socialist Eastern Europe
Agricultural modernization and the sites of food production under socialism
Landscape transformation, industrial pollution, and food safety
Consumption, scarcity, and everyday experiences of food during socialism
Food, environment, and new nosological entities
Expertise, science, and the governance of food systems under socialism
Food, health, and environmental reforms in late socialism
Socialist engagements with FAO, WHO, ILO, the World Bank, and the Rockefeller/Ford Foundations: transnational expert networks and global knowledge exchanges on food, health, and environmental sustainability
Socialist legacies and post-socialist transformations in food systems, health, and environmental governance
We welcome papers focusing on East Central Europe broadly conceived, including but not limited to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the GDR, and the Soviet Union, as well as comparative and transnational perspectives involving other socialist or postcolonial contexts.
The conference language is English. Contributors should submit an abstract of 300 words outlining their proposal, along with a 200-word bio (in a single document) by 15 July 2026. All proposals should be submitted as email attachments to mara.marginean@gmail.com . Extended abstracts (approximately 1500 words) will be circulated in advance among participants to facilitate discussion. Plans are underway to develop a collective publication following the conference.
The conference is a hybrid event, organized by the 'George Barițiu' Institute of History in cooperation with the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca branch, within the research project NUTRIPOL: Medical Knowledge, Nutrition, and Social Change: An Inquiry into the Politics of Life in Late Socialist Romania (1960–1989) (PN-IV-P2-2.1-TE-2023-0738), https://sites.google.com/view/nutripol-statesocialism/home.
The organizers can offer accommodation for eligible participants (subject to available funding).
The deadline for abstract & bio submission: 15 July 2026
Notification of acceptance: 30 July 2026
Conference date: 26-27 November 2026
Venue: George Barițiu Institute of History, 12-14 M. Kogalniceanu street, Cluj-Napoca
Contact: Dr. Mara Marginean, researcher, e-mail: mara.marginean@gmail.com