Intersectionality, Poverty, and Food Insecurity Among Women-Headed Households in Urban South West Nigeria: A Critical Feminist Analysis

This study conducts a critical feminist intersectional analysis of the relationships among gender, poverty, ethnicity, and food insecurity among women-headed households in urban South West Nigeria, with fieldwork sites in Lagos, Ibadan, and Abeokuta. Intersectionality as a theoretical lens reveals how overlapping structural inequalities compound food insecurity vulnerability in ways that single-axis analyses of gender or poverty alone cannot capture. The study employs a qualitative feminist research design incorporating 24 months of multi-site ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews with 90 women household heads, participatory food mapping, and critical discourse analysis of social protection policy texts. Analytical methods include intersectional thematic analysis, feminist standpoint epistemology, and critical policy discourse analysis. The Intersectionality Theory of Crenshaw and the Feminist Political Ecology Framework jointly anchor the study. Original contributions include the first intersectional ethnographic study of food insecurity among urban South West Nigerian women-headed households, a multi-dimensional food vulnerability typology, and a critical policy analysis demonstrating the gender-blindness of existing Nigerian food security safety nets. Findings are expected to reveal distinct intersectional profiles of food insecurity that conventional socioeconomic categorisations obscure. Recommendations address the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Lagos and Ogun state governments, and Home Economics curriculum developers regarding gender-responsive food security programming. Keywords: intersectionality, food insecurity, women-headed households, feminist analysis, South West Nigeria.