Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT2014: Cultures: Food

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

Module Aims

This module is intended to introduce you to the social scientific study of food production, preparation and consumption. It allows you to review and evaluate the major ways of understanding the relations between food, culture and society. In so doing, it also introduces you to how anthropologists, sociologists and others conceptualise and research cultural and social forces and phenomena more generally.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.

On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter of anthropology (and sociology) of food, together with an analytical understanding of the subject matter, which takes into account diverse anthropological and sociological perspectives
2. demonstrate competence in describing and applying a variety of means of conceptualising and investigating the socio-cultural aspects of food
Discipline-Specific Skills3. relate a body of knowledge to a specific context within the field of anthropology;
4. think clearly and argue logically about the socio-cultural dimensions of food;
5. express anthropological (and sociological) ideas both in writing and verbally;
Personal and Key Skills6. undertake independent study concerning the subject matter of the module
7. select appropriately from a range of suggested material and present key arguments clearly;
8. demonstrate the capacity to reflect critically on the various analytic perspectives presented in the module

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Abbots, Emma-Jayne (2016) “Approaches to Food and Migration: Rootedness, Being, and Belonging”, ,” in J. Klein and J. Watson, The Handbook of Food and Anthropology, London: Bloomsbury, chapter 5.

Appadurai, Arjun (1981) ‘Gastro-politics in Hindu South Asia’, American Ethnologist 8 (3): 494-511.

Goldschmidt, Walter (1978) As You Sow: Three Studies in the Social Consequences of Agribusiness, Allanheld, Osmun, and Co., chapter 2.

Inglis, David and Gimlin, Debra (2009) The Globalization of Food, Oxford: Berg. Chapter 1, pp. 3-42.

Klein, Jakob A, Johan Pottier, and Harry G. West (2012) “New Directions in the Anthropology of Food”, in The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology, eds. R. Fardon, O. Harris, T.H. J. Marchand, M. Nuttall, C. Shore, V. Strang, and R. Wilson, London: Sage Publications Ltd., pp. 293-302.

Leitch, Alison (2009) “Slow Food and the Politics of ‘Virtuous Globalization’”, in D. Inglis and D. Gimlin, eds., The Globalization of Food, Berg. Reprinted in Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterick, eds. (2013), Food and Culture: A Reader (Third Edition), New York and London: Routledge, pp. 409-425.

Madeley, John (2000) Hungry for Trade: How the Poor Pay for Free Trade, Zed, chapter 3.

Nestle, Marion (2003) Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism, University of California Press, chapter 1.

Pottier, Johan (2016) “Observer, Critic, Activist: Anthropological Encounters with Food Insecurity”, in J. Klein and J. Watson, The Handbook of Food and Anthropology, London: Bloomsbury, chapter 7.

Probyn, Elspeth (2009) “Fat, Feelings, Bodies: A Critical Approach to Obesity”, in H Malson and M Burns, eds., Critical Feminist Approaches to Eating Disorders, Routledge, pp. 113-123.

Raynolds, Laura T. 2012. Fair Trade: Social Regulation in Global Food Markets, Journal of Rural Studies 28 (3): 276-287.