The Anthropology of Food Facing the 21st Century. Changes, Challenges and Chaos?
A one-day international workshop organised by the research group EA:RTH,
UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Department of Social Sciences,
Section for Social and Visual Anthropology
6 November 2023, 10.15-17.00
The anthropology of food and food culture has grown significantly as a specific area of research over the past decades, revealing an interest that goes way beyond a Malinowskian categorisation of food as ‘simply’ one of our basic needs. There is also a growing interest within the anthropology environment at UiT, with several members of staff engaging in research dealing specifically with food, such as traditional Norwegian ‘kokfisk’, the part of fish catches defined as what fishermen are allowed to save for private consumption, the move from traditional to modern production of herbs in Chinese medicine, and the culturally speaking iconic production of luxury so-called pata negra ham in Spain. The growing interest undoubtedly also reflects the fact that never before in history has the production and consumption, indeed the culture, of food undergone such profound and rapid changes all over the world, affected and triggered by globalisation. More worryingly food security is facing serious challenges, due to for example climatic and environmental changes, in some cases actually prompted by the ways that we produce and distribute food.
This international workshop will look at several of these issues, focusing on ethnographic fieldwork-based research, in some cases using visual anthropology methods. Susanne Højlund (Aarhus University, Denmark), one of the world’s leading scholars on food culture, is confirmed as keynote speaker, while Richard Fraser, Tommy Ose, Carolina Némethy, and Peter I Crawford will present their food research as members of the EA:RTH research group. Other presentations will hopefully follow this:
Call for papers: Please submit a title, an abstract (around 10 lines), a bio (around 3 lines) and a few photos before 6 October 2023. Send to peter.crawford@uit.no. Please also send any queries to the same email address. Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation but there will be no registration fee and lunch will be served.
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