Short Abstract

This panel proposes to gather contributions on original and innovative methodologies to study food. They must render the wealth of interdisciplinary engagements with the topic beyond strictly economic or cultural approaches, looking more specifically at space and social contexts.

Long Abstract

Food as an object of study has compelled researchers to cross disciplinary boundaries: materialist approaches are complemented by anthropological analysis fleshing out the social context of commodity chains. Although eating may seem a trivial act, understanding its meaning requires attention to spaces, markets, supply and demand, geographical and political constraints, and agricultural transformations. But it also involves to study social contexts, particularly the differentiation among eaters, and representations, such as the circulation of standards, urban ‘modernity’, the expansion of capitalism, and the emergence of new categories like youth or consumer classes. Social scientists therefore need a multi-tool kitbox, which this panel proposes to represent by gathering original contributions addressing these methodologies.

This panel invites contributions to propose detailed analysis of food practices and representations, embedded within cultural food spaces – ‘foodscapes’ – to shed light on the diversity of food-related situations and trajectories in Africa, beyond deterministic patterns of 'food transition' or standardization. Preferred methods are qualitative, drawing for instance from the ‘follow the thing’ approach or social and spatial biographies of dishes. The examination of ‘culinary infrastructures’ can inspire ethnographies of culinary knowledge, while we also invite further proposals to historicize gendered engagements in food trade/making. Special attention can be drawn to epistemic categories to assess the efficiency of food supply, starting with the notion of 'food market'. Comparative studies between rural and urban spaces, between countries or localities in or outside the continent, can point to different environmental knowledges or strategies to alleviate hunger.

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