SAFN Future of Food Anthropology Fellows

Ariana Gunderson

SAFN’s slate of awards are awarded annually to support students and scholars in the field of food anthropology. In 2023 we launched a new award, the Future of Food Anthropology Fellowship to support self-identified BIPOC scholars in graduate school or in the years following graduation. The aim of this fellowship is to amplify the research, community-engaged scholarship, or activism of junior scholars of color and catalyze more public engagement with food anthropology, while also building a more inclusive anthropology of food and nutrition. The 2024 application cycle will open in January; more information to be found on the award webpage here.

We invite you to get to know our 2023 fellows, Carolyn Mason and Dr. Vanessa Castañeda with these zippy interviews about their research, favorite fall foods, and visions for the discipline.

Carolyn Mason
PhD Student, Southern Methodist University

What’s your current research project?

My research focuses on how Black people in Dallas try to make healthy, but culturally relevant food choices in a foodscape that has traditionally been hostile to them.

What’s your favorite food anthropology monograph?

I really enjoyed Julie Guthman’s Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism! It was one of the first books I was assigned in grad school, and it really made me think about how food defines the relationship between the body and the world around it. Outside of anthropology, I really love Psyche Williams-Forson’s Eating While Black!

What class do you dream about teaching?

I dream of teaching Anthropology of Popular Culture! There’s a lot of misinformation about anthropology out there, and I think it would be a lot of fun to take down how and why those exist (and watching Indiana Jones in class and talking about how silly it is can’t hurt!).

What’s your favorite autumnal food?

I found a recipe for pumpkin alfredo sauce a few years ago, and I’ve made it every year since! I love making things like pumpkin and sweet potatoes savory!

What do you hope becomes a major focus of food anthropology in the next decade?

I hope that we start to discuss the ways that social media is influencing the ways that we perceive food. I think there are some really interesting debates happening online about what counts as “real” food and how processed food no longer counts as something healthy or genuine. I’ll be sure to keep a look out for any good data as I scroll though Instagram!

Vanessa Castañeda
Assistant Professor, Davidson College

What’s your current research project?

I have carried out long-term community-based research with baianas de acarajé, older Afro-Brazilian women food street vendors that sell West-African originating foods, and examine the ways they are relegated as emblems of a folkloric past and underscore their modes of creative activism and political agency.

What’s your favorite food anthropology monograph?

That’s tough! I’ve been re-reading Hanna Garth’s Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal and Psyche A. Williams-Forson’s Building Houses out of Chicken Legs because they are so good!

What class do you dream about teaching?

I would love to teach a class about the intersections of food, culture, labor, race, gender, and religion in Brazil AND integrate a week-long trip to the state of Bahia (Brazil) as part of the class.

What’s your favorite autumnal food?

Anything sweet potato!

What do you hope becomes a major focus of food anthropology in the next decade?

I hope to see more and more feminist and multiracial work being highlighted in food anthro.