Short Abstract

How can food anthropology make its voice heard? Our contributions are often lost. Much is due to the pursuit of communication methods that work only for Academia. This panel seeks creative, multimodal methodologies to foster impactful public engagement and social change.

Long Abstract

Anthropology’s fraught transition from the 'ivory tower' of academia to the public sphere remains a critical, unresolved challenge. This hiatus is particularly visible within the anthropology of food. While international debates address crucial issues—from sustainable consumption to community rights, from heritage preservation to food sovereignty—and global cultural industries promulgate an ultra-consumerist imaginary that flattens or falsifies the cultural value of food into easy-to-access entertainment formats, the anthropological voice remains largely unheard. The anthropological voice—critically analyzing these very processes and often identifying possible solutions to many of the crucial problems of the contemporary world—remains largely unheard.

The discipline has powerfully demonstrated food's deep entanglement with political economy, colonial history, and precarious ecologies, yet these complex analyses seldom permeate public consciousness, resulting in a rising frustration in the anthropological community. Thus, the long-standing call for a public anthropology demands not just critical analysis but new, accessible forms of knowledge dissemination.

Following the path opened by the Anthrofood 2050 workshop, this panel confronts this communicative and methodological gap. We ask: How can we move beyond the traditional monograph to foster genuine public engagement and drive social change?

This panel invites anthropologists to present innovative, creative methodologies designed to 'breach the divide.' We seek contributions that showcase 'best practices' and scalable models for translating critical anthropological thought into impactful public interventions.

Submissions might explore (but are not limited to) projects utilizing collaborative social theatre, sensory ethnography as an artistic installation, graphic anthropology (comics), or the development of critical community cookbooks.

We aim to showcase the creativity of anthropological thinking, not just as an analytical tool, but as a 'making' practice capable of re-educating public attention and fostering new, critical imaginaries outside the academy.

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