The original deadline for submissions for this special issue was March 1, 2020, just days before the destabilizing and disorienting first wave of pandemic-related shutdowns in many parts of Canada. The (r)evolution in food systems pedagogy we were hoping to document and celebrate was promptly preempted by an abrupt transition to virtual learning. In an instant, teachers and learners alike were attending to a pedagogical revolution of another kind altogether. The enduring impacts of this upheaval remain unclear. In the immediate term, though, the shift to online learning presented a crisis (a hasty ‘pivot’ to online teaching and learning) within a crisis (the daily reality of living within the context of a deadly global pandemic).
For many critical food systems students and teachers, these new crises layered on top of the already front-of-mind crises propelled by the capital-intensive, industrialized food system. Like peering through translucent nesting dolls, we squinted through layers of pedagogical disruption and pandemic to remain focused on the economic, social and ecological devastation wrought by our dominant food system, and for glimpses of the pluriverse of food systems alternatives that inspire and nourish us.