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Unlike food publications that have been more organized along regional or disciplinary lines, this edited volume is distinctive in that it brings together anthropologists, archaeologists, area study specialists, linguists and food policy administrators to explore the following questions: What kinds of changes in food and foodways are happening? What triggers change and how are the changes impacting identity politics? In terms of scope and organization, this book offers a vast historical extent ranging from the 5th mill BCE to the present day. In addition, it presents case studies from across the world, including Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and America. Finally, this collection of essays presents diverse perspectives and differing methodologies. It is an accessible introduction to the study of food, social change and identity.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Food, Social Change and Identity by Cynthia Chou and Susanne Kerner.- Chapter 2: Ingesting the Contemporary: Food and Angst by Mandy Thomas.- Chapter 3: Fish, Identity and Social Change by Richard Wilk.- Chapter 4: The Social Life of Food by Tamara Bray.- Chapter 5: Prejudice, Assimilation and Profit: The Peculiar History of Italian Cookery in the United States by Anthony Buccini.- Chapter 6: Narratives on an Independent Cuisine: Catalan Food as Identity in the Contemporary Independence Movement by Venetia Johannes.- Chapter 7: The Danish Meal Partnership: A Shortcut to a Healthier Diet by Claus Egeris.- Chapter 8: Food and Identity in the 5th mill BCE by Susanne Kerner.- Chapter 9: In Search of Authenticity: Roti John and the Banana Pancake Trail by Cynthia Chou and Martin Platt.
About the author
Cynthia Chou is Professor of Anthropology, C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family Chair of Asian Studies and Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Iowa, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, U.K. in 1994 and was awarded in 2011 the highest Danish academic degree of dr. phil. by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in recognition of her work on the sea nomads of Indonesia.
Susanne Kerner is Associate Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She was the director of the German Protestant Institute for Archaeology and History in Amman, Jordan until 1996. Since that time, she has directed and co-directed several excavations and surveys in Jordan from the Neolithic to the Classic periods.
