Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the characteristics and development of written and oral vernacular narratives about polar bear meat consumption in Iceland throughout recent history. A particular emphasis is placed on the expression of gender, spatial and human-animal boundaries in these narratives.

Paper long abstract:

Icelandic narratives about bear meat consumption are rare, yet can be found in sources of varying historical accuracy from the settlement era to the 1960s. In some communities, folk ideas surrounding the properties of bear meat have survived and developed alongside this practice, often linking its consumption with the attainment of other-than-human properties such as bravery and physical endurance. This paper aims to examine how humans relate to bear meat during and in the wake of these rare exchanges. Furthermore, developments of folk ideas about bear meat in a modern context are explored, as government regulations and increased awareness of trichinella make its consumption a much more difficult, and subversive, culinary practice. In this analysis, particular attention is paid to bear meat narratives as a format for expression of ideas about boundaries of gender, culture, space and species. At the core of this research is narrative analysis of written sources from the 19th and 20th centuries and interviews conducted by the researcher during the summer of 2020, as well as selected responses to ethnographic questionnaires. This narrative analysis demonstrates a certain continuity in regard to ideas about gender in bear narratives. Consumers of bear meat are portrayed as male, while female biology (ursid and human) sometimes facilitates the transferral of properties from bear to man. Meanwhile, the analysis of narratives from recent years shows the emergence of new ideas about the nature and origins of bear meat, as this culinary practice makes a transition from Iceland‘s geographical to cultural fringes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the practices and ideas of gender in a sector of family-operated food manufacturing in South Korea, analyzing how Korean gendered notions of skill, food knowledge, and family relations are lived in shop space as well as in the organizational practices of the sector.

Paper long abstract:

Processing rice into pastry or cakes (tteok in Korean) is a food manufacturing industry in South Korea in which the majority of production is carried out by small family-operated businesses, often kept by a tandem of a married couple, with family and kin members and wage employees helping only during busy seasons. Tteok is considered a traditional food in Korea, and peak production and consumption take place during festivities and in rituals, both traditional and modern.

This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork among practitioners in rice cake trade in South Korea for a research project investigating organizational practices of the self-employed as Korean culture of economy, discusses practices and ideas of gender in the setting of a shop space among rice cake makers as well as within the various organizations of their trade. I aim to situate the ethnographic reality of the labor and spousal existence in the business as well as my analysis into a larger frame of South Korean gendered notions of possession and use of skill, food knowledge, and family relations.

While in the grassroots level of local groupings the rice cake shops were mostly represented by husbands irrespective of the formal proprietorship, in organizations close to the formal national-level trade association, the presence of women was considerable, and much more so among the visible national elite. This I will juxtapose with and relate to the daily shared toil of wife and husband in the shop.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how and why gender exceptionalism functions as value-added in the male-dominated world of mezcal. I argue that the “celebration” of women in the mezcal industry serves to erase the gendered inequities by which women came to participate in the first place.

Paper long abstract:

Oaxacan mezcal is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation into a high-end, prestige commodity that is now produced for international export. Mezcal is an alcoholic spirit made by distilling the fermented juice of the agave, the same plant used to produce tequila. The production of mezcal has historically been, and continues to be, men’s work. Nevertheless, in the past decade, a handful of women have emerged as master mezcal makers (maestras mezcaleras). These women have garnered much attention within the within the industry as well as from consumers who are drawn by the novelty and the women’s biographies. This paper examines how and why gender exceptionalism functions as value-added in the male-dominated world of mezcal. Based on ethnographic field work carried out in Oaxaca, I argue that the “celebration” of women in the mezcal industry erases the very gender discrimination and inequities that created circumstances by which women came to participate in the first place. I use the case of one of Oaxaca’s most visible female mezcalera to illustrate how notions of female empowerment are often at odds with the social and material realities facing rural women producers.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of the presentation is to analyze the affective and emotional dimensions of food heritage making in Mexico. I focus on the ways in which emotions are used by different actors engaged in heritage tourism industry to mobilize and manage work and public image of ethnic female cooks in Oaxaca.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the results of extensive multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2014-17 as well as the analysis of secondary sources (cookbooks, mass media, food heritage policies) this paper focuses on the affective and emotional dimensions of food heritage making (both top-down and grassroot) in the south of Mexico.

Oaxaca foodways (peasant, ethnic and communitarian, based on skills and embodied knowledge of women) until recently considered low brow, backward and even morally dangerous have in recent years become the flagship of regional economy.

In order to successfully promote local gastronomy different actors engaged in heritage tourism industry have used emotions to mobilize and actively manage work as well as public image of ethnic female cooks in Oaxaca. The special emphasis has been put on the display of the adequate and expected emotions like pride in local food cultures (orgullo oaxaqueño).

The aim of this presentation is to look at the affective heritage practices of female cooks in the state promoted as “the heart of Mexican cuisine” yet one of the poorest regions of the country. The analysis of gendered emotions – in this case pride - and their contextual, performative and discursive aspects can reveal the relationship between affective practices, power and privilege in vernacular heritage-making processes.