Colin Sage

Colin Sage is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography at University College Cork, teaching courses such as the Geography of the Global Food System and Environmental Policy.

He locates himself within a theoretically informed, socially engaged and policy relevant interpretation of environmental geography. That is, within the long-standing tradition of the discipline concerned with human-nature interactions but now informed by an explicit commitment to sustainability and global social justice.

Previously, his research was engaged with agricultural and rural development, food and livelihood security and natural resources management in the South. This enabled him to conduct extended periods of fieldwork in Bolivia, Mexico and Indonesia with shorter research and consultancy visits to China, Central America , Ethiopia , Pakistan and Peru.

More recently, his research as steered away from the study of the majority world toward a better understanding of sustainability issues in Ireland and the global North. Currently he is engaged in several strands of research under the rubric geographies of food . These include:

• Work on the theme of 'alternative food networks', which has involved the interrogation of concepts such as quality, trust and regard. He is presently engaged in exploring the construction of risk and the role of science in the regulation and governance of artisan foods in Europe .

• A second line of research is concerned with exploring the environmental consequences of our contemporary food system and the kinds of measures that might enable us to achieve greater sustainability in production, distribution and consumption practices.

Beside his directorship of Eco Innovation, he is engaged in a number of NGOs such as Cork Free Choice Consumers Group, Slow Food Ireland and Cork Environmental Forum. He is also a member of the editorial boards for some international agricultural journals.

See his personal website at the University College Cork at http://www.ucc.ie/academic/geography/pages/staff/sage_c.htm