By Caroline Merrifield (Yale) My friend Zhang is one of the head chefs at the fine-dining farm-to-table restaurant in Hangzhou, China, where I did most of my dissertation fieldwork. Zhang is a charismatic talker, and he is often recruited by the restaurant owner to explain his philosophy of cooking to guests and visitors. He has … More Spirit, Monster, Table and Tongue
By Joe Quick, with contributions from Larry Nesper § In 2012, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians engaged research specialists working in several different fields, including anthropology, the physical sciences, and law. Our assignment was to assemble a report to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about air quality on the tribe’s reservation … More Protecting Cultural Environments in Northern Wisconsin: Anthropology’s Contribution to a Tribal Initiative
By Sarah Webb § When I began researching honey collecting in the Philippines, I never anticipated that making visual collections of objects and images associated with marketing honey was going to become a powerful way of stimulating discussion about my study. But the clues were there all along. Collections are things brought together, in so … More Gathering Divergent Forest Honeys: Collections and Commodity Flows in the Philippines
By Peggy F. Barlett § Back in 2005, as Emory University embraced sustainability as part of a new strategic plan, it was the physicians on the visioning committee who insisted on including food as a priority. Recognizing that environmental, economic, health, and social justice concerns intertwined with food, the committee encouraged local sourcing of vegetables, … More Campus Food Projects: Engines for a More Sustainable System?
By Cailín E. Murray with contributions from her students Whitney Lingle and Britny Burton § Once a booming agricultural and factory town, Muncie, Indiana, is today a post-industrial rustbelt city grappling with questions about its economic and environmental futures. As heavy industries left town, Muncie’s economy has flagged, leaving some 24% of its residents at … More Sustainability and Food Production in the Hoosier Heartland: Learning through Local Engagement
by Dvera I. Saxton § Throughout the course of my research, I’ve seen how there is no one way to eat locally or to farm sustainably. These concepts and practices are quite fluid and change based on context, but also with the flash of a dollar sign. The “Loca-vore” movement is but one incarnation of … More The Lores of Local Food: Different Ways of Being Local and Eating Locally
ENGAGEMENT editor Rebecca Garvoille recently caught up with Paige West, the Tow Associate Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, to discuss her new book, From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea (2012, Duke University Press), and its broader contributions to promoting social and environmental … More Paige West on Coffee, Commodities, and Community Engagement
