Contact info

You can contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) for assistance via email or via Ask a librarian.

Research process

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected reference works

Encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks provide overviews, definitions and identify key authors and ideas.

• Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics
• Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies
• Handbook of food and anthropology 
• Handbook of urban food governance 
• Handbook on the human impact of agriculture 
• International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
• Oxford handbook of food ethics 
• Oxford handbook of food, politics, and society
• Routledge Handbook of Gender and Agriculture
• Routledge Handbook of Global Land and Resource Grabbing
• Routledge handbook of indigenous development 
• Routledge handbook of indigenous environmental knowledge
• Routledge handbook of sustainable and regenerative food systems
• Routledge handbook of sustainable diets 

Find journal articles using databases

Searching the "Databases for a discipline" is a great strategy to view articles that have been written within the scholarly journals of that discipline.  For help, refer to the How to find journal articles, What is a scholarly journal?, and Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video 3:13 mins]

If full-text of article is not available from within the database, click on the "Get@SFU" to start a search.  If the Library does not provide access, then use the Citation Finder/ILL tab to request a copy from another library (free) through SFU Library's Inter-Library Loans (ILL) service.

• Sociological Abstracts  Theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Anthropology Plus — Key database for Anthropological journal articles
• Social Sciences Full Text  Access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals
• Biological and Agricultural Index Plus - Core articles and conference proceedings in biology and agriculture.
• AGRIS / CARIS - Open Access database from FAO (UN's Food and Agricultural Organization) 
  • AGRIS (Agricultural sciences and technology) identifies worldwide references to journals, books, and non-conventional materials (sometimes called "grey literature" e.g. theses, reports, etc.) covering all aspects of agriculture, forestry, plant and animal production, and food and nutrition.CARIS (Current Agricultural Research Information System) identifies detailed information about current agricultural research projects being carried out in - or on behalf of - developing countries.
  • Search: food sovereignty
• Environment Complete -- Comprehensive coverage (over 1,900 journals) in environmental and many related disciplines. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.
• CBCA Complete Canada's reference and current events - scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines
• Google Scholar -- use the database through the Library to search for fulltext of articles. For better search results, consult the guide, Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
  • Search for your "key" article.  Check the link "cited by" right beneath the reference to that article

News databases

• Nexis Uni - Indexes newspapers from around the world, in English and other languages. Includes transcripts from the major television and radio networks.
• PressReader - Current issues of newspapers from around the world. Some newspapers include the provision for language translation and/or audio of stories, once selected. There is a rolling window of current few months (perhaps 2-3, depending on the publication) before an article/issue becomes unavailable within the database. 
• Canadian Newsstream
  Full text of the Province (1989-current, delayed 1 day), Vancouver Sun (1987-current, delayed 1 day), and the Times Colonist (Victoria) (1993-current, delayed 1 day) and many BC weeklies (most from 2000-current), as well as many major papers across Canada such as the Globe & Mail (1977-current, no delay).

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited by "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"

• sociolog* AND (food* OR agricul* OR agro* OR agrarian OR farm*) AND ecolog* 
• (farm* OR food OR agricultur* OR agrar*) AND (colonial* OR capitalis* OR globaliz*) 
• (farming OR food OR agriculture OR agrarian) AND ("political econom*") 
• "food sovereign*"
• agroecology OR  re-peasantization 
• ("peasant dispossession" OR "land grabs" OR "seed enclosures") AND (food* OR agricul* OR agro* OR agrarian OR farm*) 
•  sustainable AND (farm* OR agricultur* OR agroecological*) AND (movement* OR resist* OR sovereign*)
• (farm* OR agricultur* OR agroecological* OR ecolog*) AND knowledge AND indigen* 
• (worker* OR labor*" OR labour ) AND (agrarian OR agro* OR agricultur* OR farm*)

Proper syntax for Boolean logic (words that allow you to combine concepts)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• Advances in Food Security and Sustainability [book series]
• Agribusiness : an international perspective
• Agrarian Question: A Reader
• Agroecology : a transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approach
• Anthropocene or Capitalocene [print]
• Case against the Global Economy [print]
• Commodification of Global Agrifood Systems and Agro-Ecology: Convergence, Divergence and Beyond in Turkey [print]
• Contested sustainability discourses in the agrifood system 
• Diversity of Family Farming Around the World: Existence, Transformations and Possible Futures of Family Farms
• Ethics of agribusiness : justice and global food in focus 
• Fair food : stories from a movement changing the world 
• Farm Labor Problem: A Global Perspective
• Farm workers in Western Canada : injustices and activism
• Financialization of Agri-Food Systems: Contested Transformations
• Food Justice in US and Global Contexts Bringing Theory and Practice Together 
• Food sovereignty in international context : discourse, politics and practice of place 
• Fresh fruit, broken bodies : migrant farmworkers in the United States
• Gender, agriculture and agrarian transformations : changing relations in Africa, Latin America and Asia
• Gender and agriculture in Turkey : women, globalization and food production
• Gender, Food and COVID-19 : Global Stories of Harm and Hope
• Global foodscapes : oppression and resistance in the life of food 
• Global hunger crisis tackling food insecurity in developing countries 
• Growing and eating sustainably : agroecology in action [print]
• Hunger, whiteness and religion in neoliberal Britain : an inequality of power 
• In Defense of Farmers : The Future of Agriculture in the Shadow of Corporate Power 
• Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust [print]
• Labour and the Challenges of Globalization: What Prospects For Transnational Solidarity?
• Labor and global justice : essays on the ethics of labor practices under globalization
• Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways, and Social Movements : Decolonial perspectives 
• A Place-Based Perspective of Food in Society [print]
• Political Ecology, Food Regimes, and Food Sovereignty: Crisis, Resistance, and Resilience
• Postcolonialism, indigeneity and struggles for food sovereignty : alternative food networks in the subaltern world 
• Real Cost of Cheap Food
• A research agenda for food systems 
• Resistance to the neoliberal agri-food regime : a critical analysis 
• Seed sovereignty, food security : women in the vanguard [print]
• Shifting patterns of agricultural trade : the protectionism outbreak and food security 
• Sociology of farming : concepts and methods 
• Sociology of food and agriculture 
• Traditional ecological knowledge : learning from indigenous practices for environmental sustainability 
• Translating food sovereignty : cultivating justice in an age of transnational governance
• Twenty lessons in the sociology of food and agriculture [print]

Browse subject headings

• Agricultural industries
• Agriculture -- Social aspects
• Ethnoecology
• Food - Social aspects
• Food security
• Food sovereignty
• Food supply -- Social aspects
• Women in agriculture

Find documentaries

There are two ways to search for documentaries

1) Use the same search strategies as for finding books in Catalogue Search (Basic or the Advanced search), and then limit the search results to "resource type" of "videos"

• (farm* OR agricultur* OR agroecological* OR ecolog*) AND knowledge AND indigen* 
  • results limited to resource type of "videos"
• (farming OR food OR agriculture OR agrarian) AND ("political econom*") 
  • results limited to resource type of "videos"

2) Search for your topics within selected databases for streaming videos 

Note: All the films listed in these streaming databases are also listed individually within the SFU Catalogue so doing a Catalogue Search should yield the same films.

• Films on Demand Master Academic Collection  - Streaming educational video collection. Includes titles produced by PBS, BBC Worldwide Learning, British Pathe, HBO, Journeyman Pictures, National Geographic, and hundreds more. Options for embedding, creating playlists, and mobile device viewing. Includes captioning with interactive and searchable transcripts.
  • Note: Either 
    • 1) search for the topic: (farm* OR agricultur* OR agroecological* OR ecolog*) AND knowledge AND indigen* 
       
    • 2) browse through the "subject listing" of films (click on the three bars at top left of the page), such as Food Safety & the Food Supply.
• NFB - Films produced by the National Film Board of Canada (streaming online). Includes documentaries, animation and alternative dramas. Includes access to NFB Campus films and educational resources.
  • Note:
    • Search for the topic:
    • Search by topic: click on search icon, and then click on "subjects" and then choose topics such as "food and food industries"
       
• Curio.ca - CBC’s educational streaming service and provides access to the best in educational content from CBC and Radio-Canada. Curio contains thousands of television shows, radio programs, teacher guides, and K–12 curriculum connections. Available in both English and French, they cover a wide range of topics suitable for all ages. Curio also includes CBC's News in Review, current-event series, in addition to materials that goes back to 1945.
  • Note:
    • 1) Search using simple keywords. Note, long complicated searches using Boolean operators and truncation symbol does not work. Instead use complete words or phrases such as "food supply"
    • 2) Browse through "themes", such as "urban farming"

Government information

• United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
  • Food systems

Searching using Google

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "(__ OR__ )" around words with the same meaning (synonyms). "AND" is assumed by Google so you don't need to include it in your search strategy.

Google special search engine

IGO Search
International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). 

Search: "food sovereignity"

Library guides

• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles.
• Library Catalogue search guide.
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them.

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.