A one-day international workshop organised by the research group EA:RTH, UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Department of Social Sciences, Section for Social and Visual Anthropology
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. We warmly welcome Susanne Højlund (Aarhus University, Denmark), one of the world’s leading scholars on food culture, as our keynote speaker.
PROGRAMME
10:15 – 12:00 Welcome and Keynote: Susanne Højlund
10:15 Welcome and short introduction
10:20 Keynote speaker and discussion
Susanne Højlund: Taste Agency and the Green Transition
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break
13:00 – 16:00 Participants’ presentations and discussions
13:00 Jennifer Hays - Indigenous food systems, formal education, and the Nyae Nyae Ju/’hoansi
13:30 Peter Ian Crawford – Food on the move in Europe: a case from Sierra de Grazalema
14:00 Richard Fraser - Alcohol, Agency, and Nonhuman Personhood amongst the Reindeer-Evenki in Northeast China
14:00 – 14:30 Coffee Break
14:30 Tommy Ose - Beyond Duality - Moral economies of food in the north
15:00 Sigrid Wibe - Navigating dual food systems in Qasigiannguit, Western Greenland
15:30 Carolina Némethy – The blurred boundary between food and medicine in the Chinese context
16:00 – 17:00 General Discussion