The Handbook of Food and Anthropology

by Jakob A. Klein (Editor), James L. Watson (Editor)

Overview

Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Award 2017.

Interest in the anthropology of food has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first handbook to provide a detailed overview of all major areas of the field.

20 original essays by leading figures in the discipline examine traditional areas of research as well as cutting-edge areas of inquiry. Divided into three parts – Food, Self and Others; Food Security, Nutrition and Food Safety; Food as Craft, Industry and Ethics – the book covers topics such as identity, commensality, locality, migration, ethical consumption, artisanal foods, and children's food. Each chapter features rich ethnography alongside wider analysis of the subject.

Internationally renowned scholars offer insights into their core areas of specialty. Examples include Michael Herzfeld on culinary stereotypes, David Sutton on how to conduct an anthropology of cooking, Johan Pottier on food insecurity, and Melissa Caldwell on practicing food anthropology. The book also features exceptional geographic and cultural diversity, with chapters on South Asia, South Africa, the United States of America, post-socialist societies, Maoist China, and Muslim and Jewish foodways.

Invaluable as a reference as well as for teaching, The Handbook of Food and Anthropology serves to define this increasingly important field. An essential resource for researchers and students in anthropology and food studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350001145
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/25/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	496
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jakob A. Klein is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK.

James L. Watson is Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Harvard University, USA.
Jakob A. Klein is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
James L. Watson is Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Harvard University.  Watson is an ethnographer who has spent over four decades working in south China, primarily in villages (Guangdong, Jiangxi, and the Hong Kong region). He learned to speak country Cantonese in the Hong Kong New Territories during the late 1960s and has subsequently worked in many parts of the People's Republic (using Mandarin). His research has focused on Chinese emigrants to London, ancestor worship and popular religion, family life and village organization, food systems, and the emergence of a post-socialist culture in the PRC. Watson also worked with graduate students in Harvard's Department of Anthropology to investigate the impact of transnational food industries in East Asia, Europe, and Russia. Publications in the anthropology of food include "From the common pot: eating with equals in Chinese society," Anthropos, 82 (1987); Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia (edited volume, Stanford University Press, 1997/2006); The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader (co-edited with  M.L. Caldwell, Blackwell Publishing, 2005); and "Feeding the revolution: public mess halls and coercive commensality in Maoist China," in E. Zhang et al. (eds), Governance of Life in Chinese Moral Experience (Routledge, 2011).

Table of Contents

Introduction
James L. Watson and Jakob A. Klein

Part One: Food, Self and Other

1. Culinary Stereotypes: The Gustatory Politics of Gastro-Essentialism
Michael Herzfeld

2. Muslim Foodways
Maris B. Gillette

3. Food, Commensality and Caste in South Asia
James Staples

4. Jewish Foods at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century
Joëlle Bahloul

5. Approaches to Food and Migration: Rootedness, Being, and Belonging
Emma-Jayne Abbots

6. Local Foods, Local Specialties, and Local Identity
Nir Avieli

Part Two: Food Security, Nutrition, and Food Safety

7. Observer, Critic, Activist: Anthropological Encounters with Food Insecurity
Johan Pottier

8. Feeding Farmers and Feeding the Nation in Modern Malaysia: The Political Economy of Food and Taste
Francesca Bray

9. Children's Food
Jennifer Patico and Eriberto Lozada

10. Cows' Milk as Children's Food: Insights from India and the U.S.
Andrea S. Wiley

11. Food, Borders, and Diseases
Alan Smart and Josephine Smart

12. Rethinking Food and Its Eaters: Opening the Black Boxes of Safety and Nutrition
Heather Paxson

13. Food Provisioning and Foodways in Postsocialist Societies: Food as Medium for Social Trust and Global Belonging
Yuson Jung

14. Feeding the Revolution: Public Mess Halls and Coercive Commensality in Maoist China
James L. Watson

Part Three: Food as Craft, Industry and Ethics

15. Church Cookbooks: Changing Foodways on the American Prairie
Rubie S. Watson

16. The Anthropology of Cooking
David Sutton

17. Supermarket Expansion, Informal Retail, and Food Acquisition Strategies: An Example from Rural South Africa
Elizabeth Hull

18. Ethical Consumption: The Moralities and Politics of Food
Peter Luetchford

19. Artisanal Food and the Cultural Economy: Perspectives on Craft, Heritage, Authenticity, and Reconnection
Harry G. West

20. Practicing Food Anthropology: Moving Food Studies from the Classroom to the Boardroom
Melissa L. Caldwell

Editorial Reviews

“The Handbook of Food and Anthropology offers a wealth of information presented in an accessible form that is ideal for a broad audience, from undergraduates to graduates alike. This volume is an important and timely work that will prove to be a useful reference to food-focused scholars now and in the future.” - Rural Sociology

From the Publisher