Foodways in Discourse and Practice: A Discussion of Ethnographic Methods.
This panel will seek to find theory and methods that prove useful in overcoming the impediments to matching quantitative dietary recall data with qualitative ethnographic participant observation of foodways in the field. We will seek to share theories and practices that help illuminate these difficult but interesting areas of disjuncture. Instead of presenting these incongruous results as failure in the field, I am seeking researchers who have dug deeper into these conflicts to find interesting ways to apply theory and further understanding of how humans use and interpret their foodways.
If you are interested in participating please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words discussing some aspect of your participant-observation fieldwork that has benefited from a renewed or novel understanding of anthropological theory (particularly practice theory, political economy, cultural materialism or symbolic/interpretive theoretical frameworks) in order to understand contradictory results in dietary surveys or other quantitative methods used to study foodways. Please keep in mind the historical understanding and future directions implied by the theme of this year’s conference.
Please submit your proposal or direct any questions to Amber O’Connor at aoconnor@utexas.edu by February 25th.
Note from the editor: If you are organizing a food/nutrition related panel for the AAA meetings this year–or, really, for any conference–we would be happy to post it here at FoodAnthropology. Just send it along to foodanthro@gmail.com and we will take care of it.
FoodAnthropology 