Paper short abstract:

Based on the results of extended fieldwork this paper focuses on the workings of heritage politics in a local context of (post)colonial yet transnational society of Oaxaca (Southern Mexico).

Paper long abstract:

In 2010 Traditional Mexican Cuisine was inscribed on UNESCO Intangible Heritage List. Recognition of Mexican food and foodways as cultural heritage has contributed to the emergence of culinary tourism as a strategy for local development in several regions of the country and further boosted the already existing tourism of this kind in other parts e.g. the state of Oaxaca which cuisine is considered to be the most sophisticated in Mexico. Over the last decades this Southern state has become the site of booming culinary tourism industry owning to both state-led development strategies based on promoting cultural and ethnic tourism as well as numerous private enterprises.

The key element for its success are native women who provide government officials, professional chefs and cookbook authors with vast knowledge of the 'ancestral, ongoing, community food culture', regional products and techniques of cooking. At the same time Indian women are still widely perceived as skillful but passive and subordinate exotic 'others' and their knowledge appropriated and commercialized for the benefit of mestizo or foreign chefs and cookbook authors, and they are usually marginalized in the public celebrations of Oaxacan cuisine.

Based on the results of fieldwork carried out in 2011 and 2014-15 in central Oaxaca this paper focuses on the workings of heritage politics in a local context of (post)colonial yet transnational society. I scrutinize gender (along with ethnic and class) aspects of heritigization of Oaxacan foods, negotiations and contestations between different groups engaged in Oaxacan culinary tourism industry as well as open conflicts over heritage representations, politics and rights.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation we examine how local religious beliefs are enacted in the local diet and how local perceptions corresponding to the binary opposition 'purity/impurity' are instantiated within the culinary sphere through fast in an effective manner that supports both stability and change.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic material gathered from a town in Eastern Crete, this paper examines how local religious beliefs are enacted in the local diet and, in particular, how local perceptions corresponding to the binary opposition 'purity/impurity' are instantiated within the culinary sphere in an effective manner that supports both stability and change.

Food relates both to the tangible world, as it includes materials and their transformation, and to the intangible, as it invokes concepts, values and traditions expressed, embodied or enacted. Focusing on food related religious experiences, and fasting in particular, we argue that changes in food related religious practices may be interpreted in part as adaptive strategies of the local people in their effort to respond to the dynamics of cultural change. Fasting and its opposite, feasting, are part of local knowledge as culinary enactments of a local religious belief system.

The dynamics of culture are shown in the strategies local people employ to mediate change or adapt to the new circumstances that emerge, especially in the modern globalised world in crisis. The category of fasting/Lenten food helps people deal with change and maintain stability since what they categorise as a "traditional" diet includes edibles linked mainly to fasts. Food related knowledge is coded and manipulated in order to re-produce a familiar and well established ideational frame for people to process their surroundings and negotiate change.

Paper short abstract:

Paper concentrates on the hand made tea produced in Georgia. By concentrating on technology, knowledge production and transmission asks a question about social and economic change and role of the state in post-socialist country.

Paper long abstract:

My presentation is based on field research held in Georgia concentrating on post-socialist experience of tea growers. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, most tea fields were abandoned. Today, Georgian tea production is on the rise in terms of both quality and quantity, with emphasis on the organic growing process.

I am going to analyse Georgian Hand Made Tea Makers Association (bringing together around 500 families) to show the role of technology and knowledge transmission and production about growing food in broader social, political and economical context of post-socialist state.

To what point can we see this activities as part of the adjustment to global neoliberal changes and to what point can it be analysed as self-sufficiency strategy?

In my presentation I am going to address following issues: how taste is connected to nostalgia and discourse about a state, or rather post-state memory (Dunn 2008). Furthermore, by showing the process of shifting from state produced tea to artisanal home production I am going to refer to the question about cultural meanings of new food technologies, which in my case is abandonment of industrial production in favour of hand made home growing.

Paper short abstract:

My paper analyses the revival of traditional food in Finland in the 1970s, especially from the lost province of Carelia. The memories of taste are discussed in the framework of intergenerational identity construction and also, because of their diffusion into national level, as invention of tradition.

Paper long abstract:

From the 1960s the Finnish kitchen had started to become more international. Experiments with new tastes were set off and, for example, the emerging mass tourism familiarized the Finns with the Mediterranean kitchen. However, in the beginning of 1970s, traditional 'simple' Finnish food and delicacies from the provinces were forcefully promoted. The revival of traditional food was especially intense concerning dishes from the province of Carelia, the territory ceded to the Soviet Union during the war, with 400 000 inhabitants relocated in Finland. The purpose of my paper is to analyze this revival of provincial food and the memories of taste in the framework of intergenerational identity construction, and furthermore, because of their diffusion into national level, as invention of tradition.

Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the role of political and social change in constructing the food knowledge in contemporary Poland. On the basis of in-depth interviews and qualitative content analysis I will attempt to find out, how the macro-discourses are reflected or negated in everyday beliefs on food.

Paper long abstract:

In the paper I would like to concentrate on the relationship between food (eating, cooking, feeding) and the sociopolitical system as well as dominant ideologies. In particular I will consider the role of fundamental political transformations in Poland, resulting in lifestyle changes: the socialist modernization after Word War II and the 1989 transition. I aim at establishing if and how knowledge about good or bad food is connected to the macro level of social life? Do people's beliefs on eating and food preparation reflect macro-discourses or, on the other hand, they try to oppose them? Noteworthy is a paradox: the socialist modernization in Poland can be interpreted as uprooting in relation to everyday practices, also those concerning food. Also, it is often associated with economic shortages in daily life of households. At the same time, nowadays that period is often remembered with nostalgia and the then home made food becomes a symbol of security, naturalness and authenticity. While looking for the answers, I rely on the ethnographic material collected within the research project on the culinary knowledge conducted among people running households. I will take into account various "eating biographies", resulting - among others - from different historical and political contexts. I will focus particularly on the food memories and the comparisons between today's food and the one remembered from the past. In addition, I will use the material from the analysis of historical and contemporary culinary guidance (cookbooks, contemporary food blogs and web forums).

Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on a multi-sited fieldwork among immigrants in Argentina and in Croatia. It presents stories of traditional, ethnic foods and tastes that encourage nostalgia, serve as a “medicine” against homesickness but also represent cultural heritage and identity.

Paper long abstract:

The presentation is based on an ethnological multi-sited fieldwork among immigrants: Croats in Argentina and Croats from Argentina in Croatia. The research focused on immigrants and their descendants, as well as representatives of immigrant communities who order and present food. The sources of data for the paper, apart from interviews, were: recipes, cookbooks, photos, blogs, and social networks. Having moved from Croatia to Argentina, Croatian immigrants took with them their family cookbooks and recipes from the old country. The immigrants never abandoned their culinary heritage, but quite the opposite: "Croatian cuisine" was one of the ways to preserve memories, flavours, and knowledge of their home country. When they came back to Croatia, Croats from Argentina brought Argentinian recipes to Croatia. Food plays an important role in family and friendly gatherings on Sundays, holidays, annual and traditional celebrations, gatherings in immigrant clubs, and presentation of immigrant cultural heritage and identity at festivals and events. The presentation will include various stories on the importance of preserving and transferring family, regional and ethnic recipes, teaching how to prepare and present food. We have noted migrant experiences regarding modifications of recipes due to climate differences and ingredient availability (ethnic shops, sending and transporting ingredients in baggage). Authentic ways of preparing and consuming food arouse nostalgia, start stories on the immigrants' past and origin, which contribute to the cohesion of the community, maintaining and strengthening ethnic identities. Certain foods, drinks and flavours serve as "medicine" against homesickness.

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims at analysing the culinary practices of a group of Moroccan migrant women living in the north of Italy. In particular, I will focus on narratives and habits concerning homemade food, highlighting the interaction between local and transnational practices.

Paper long abstract:

Stemming from a doctoral research on the culinary practices of a group of Moroccan migrant women living in the north of Italy, this paper will focus on some narratives and habits concerning homemade food. This food was the result of the combination of hyper-local and transnational practices. In fact, preparing some food at home instead of buying it (bread, for example) was possible also thanks to the use of some ingredients that were bought in or coming from Morocco. The issue at stake was that of control: a control exerted on procedures at a hyper-local level, i.e. in one's own home, and on food at a transnational level, i.e. by personally knowing ingredients' producers . This combination let women prepare some representative food of their memory by using the traditional techniques learnt from their mothers and by excluding intermediations. Homemade food translated the reassuring utopia of keeping a link with a cultural belonging in spite of migration and of reducing the fear of being contaminated by the unknown products of the diversity.

Some ethnographic data will be presented to show these dynamics, and they will be supported by the visual material collected through participant observation.

Paper short abstract:

My paper discusses changes in the food culture of Siberia’s Estonians through time due to various factors: the transformation of forms of ownership, multicultural environment and mixed marriages, urbanization, growth in health awareness, media influences, etc.

Paper long abstract:

My paper discusses the views of Estonians in Siberia towards dishes unique to them and the changes that their food culture has undergone throughout time.

The majority of Estonians living in Siberia today are the descendants of people who migrated there in the last decade of the 19th century and the early 20th century. Settling in another country requires adapting to the new natural environment, which inevitably brings about changes in the customary choice of food. Estonians have mostly settled in the region suitable for farming and animal husbandry. My paper discusses changes in the food culture of Siberia's Estonians through time due to various factors: the transformation of forms of ownership, multicultural environment and mixed marriages, urbanization, growth in health awareness, media influences, etc. The younger generation is more susceptible to changes: they exchange recipes, and acquire new ideas and cooking tips also from the media and literature. The closer the communication with neighbours, the more the Estonians took over from their neighbours' food culture; often also borrowing and Estonianizing the names of dishes.

For Estonians in Siberia, including Estonians living in cities, own food often means that meals are prepared from self-grown produce. Self-grown food is perceived as healthy and opposed to imported goods and the produce grown in Chinese and Korean greenhouses that have been built in Siberia in the last few decades. The term own food also covers traditional Estonian dishes, thus helping to draw a line between 'us' and 'others'.

Paper short abstract:

Paper discusses different understandings of terms „natural”, „traditional” and „artificial” in the context of transgenic crops being introduced to Polish agriculture, as a result of implementation of EU policies. It’s based on an ethnographic study of media debate and public discourse on GMOs.

Paper long abstract:

In Poland, consciousness in food choices became lately a matter of fashion or else, a moral obligation - whether it is choosing a fair trade coffee or organic vegetables, whether it is a membership in food cooperative or everyday "food patriotism", expressed in choosing the regional or national products over the imported ones. This sensitive issue gained a new dimension few years ago - when government was deliberating over a new law settling a use of transgenic crops approved by European Union. It was summer 2012, when a fierce debate over this so-called Seed Act broke in Polish media, engaging different agents. For some GMOs were just another achievement of agricultural sciences which would improve the quality of food products. Others however were identifying genetically engineered plants as unnatural and dangerous to public health, national economy and biodiversity in Poland. After months-lasting discussion, the Seed Act was introduced in January 2013. Though the cultivation of GM crops was banned, they can still be imported for an animal fodder. Why have GMOs sparked such a deep controversy in Poland? What does naturalness mean in today's agriculture and why some consider traditional crops to be better? How does one's identity influence his/her opinion on food production? Who has an authority to decide what we eat? For these and other questions I will try to answer by referring to my field research in 2012-2013, during which I interviewed participants of the debate, and an analysis of pro and anti-GMO media discourses.

Paper short abstract:

Solidarity economies is a concrete utopia taking shape in Greece around alternative food distribution systems. The paper focuses on this food activism to explore its anti-crisis features.

Paper long abstract:

Sidelining market middlemen in food distribution has become a core issue in food activism. In crisis-ridden Greece, the social movement around it claims 'solidarity' as its organizing theme. Anthropological literature on crises can benefit from approaches that assess grassroots cooperatives formed during periods of capitalist recession, to address food distribution. This paper examines the relationship between Greece's solidarity economy and food-distribution cooperatives, and argues that the latter is a development of the former in the future plans of people struggling against the crisis. It elucidates the distribution of agrarian produce, in ways that side-line market middlemen. This is done by ethnographically analyzing the distribution of food without middlemen, an organized social response against the crisis. The paper makes a case for there being a need to pay more attention to the (alternative) alliances and networks operating in the distribution sector in food studies. It will point out how participants engaged in initiatives related to the solidarity economy tend to imagine that their activities are inspired by larger aims and claims than the immediate significance of their material actions.

Paper short abstract:

Despite paradoxes in the utopian ideal of local food, ethnographic research on small farmers in the US reveals their potential for creating change in the food system. Taking farmers’ lives seriously allows a theory of localism beyond current critiques that foregrounds collectivity and justice.

Paper long abstract:

"Local" has become a desirable quality of early 21st century consumer goods in the United States—being touted in what Americans eat, buy, read, wear, and build. A marketable characteristic, the term's ubiquity begs examination, particularly as it appears concurrently with the prevalence of global circulations and dramatic disparities in economic wealth, physical wellbeing, and environmental health. Apparent paradoxes embedded in the definitions, utopian ideals, and actual practices of "buying local" are often used to dismiss the genuinely-held aspirations of those involved. However, ethnographic research on local food producers reveals their potential for creating meaningful change in the food systems of post-industrial societies. This paper draws on original ethnographic research with locally-oriented food farmers in the Midwestern region of the US to challenge reductionist views of local food growers and to propose a socially integrative vision of food justice. It discusses the practical experience and aspirational appeal of "local" for small farmers who sell primarily through farmers' markets and community supported agriculture agreements (CSA) and who make up an at-risk class of labor. It contrasts the choices of these farmers with those of large-scale "conventional" food farmers who distribute through aggregation. By taking seriously the goals of farmers, on their own terms while also pushing the exigencies of their positions, we can develop a theory of localism that is rooted in practical and political concerns but goes beyond supply-chain and producer-consumer models to propose food as a collective enterprise of shared responsibility.