We are happy to announce the 3rd place winner of this year’s SAFN Anthropology Day photography contest. You can see the overall winner’s work here and the second place winner’s pictures are here. Third place goes to Mecca Howe Burris, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Indiana University. Burris’ photos focus on food activism, colonial legacies, and globalization in both Costa Rica and the United States. Congratulations, Mecca!
We are grateful for the submissions from all of those who participated this year and hope that everyone found the photographs inspiring. If you did not win this year (or if you did not even enter the contest), please think about doing so next year. There are clearly quite a few SAFN photographers out there with great pictures that illustrate food and foodways. Share them with us! Of course, if you don’t want to wait for the competition, you can always propose a regular blog entry.
All photos below are by Mecca Howe Burris. Click on the photo if you want to see a larger image.
Garden plots in an urban field, created and managed by youth participants of the Felege Hiywot Center’s 2024 STEAM Farm Camp. Indianapolis, Indiana, July 13, 2023
The “Emo Garden” as named by a youth participant in the Felege Hiywot Center’s 2024 Summer STEAM Farm Camp. The student grows black peonies and morning glory, using his little plot of urban land to represent his personality. Indianapolis, Indiana, July 13, 2023
Sun glistening on a stretching field of sugar cane—oh so sweet? Canas, Costa Rica, July, 2019
“Indiana” black beans sit (on sale!) among the shelves of a Costa Rican grocery store, and I feel a weird nostalgia that comes only from finding a “piece” of home in another world, even if that piece has no true ties to home—a falsity, but still a welcome ironic mix of cultures and identities. San Jose, Costa Rica, May 4, 2022
Rice, the staple of Costa Rican cuisine, for sale by the kilo with the label “Indiana”—an exemplary example of irony. San Jose, Costa Rica, May 4, 2022
An ocean of banana plants denominating the landscape of the South Caribbean region of Costa Rica. And people believe the “banana republic” is something of history, but for those who live here—they know differently. Talamanca, Costa Rica, April 29, 2022
A plantation of Dole’s Tropical Gold Pineapple provides a recent example of land change—deforestation—and intensive monoculture agriculture in the rural north of Costa Rica, an underdeveloped and underinvested area that has recently become the home of expanding foreign-owned pineapple agribusinesses. Sarapiquí, Costa Rica, July 18, 2019
A banana plantation provides the backdrop of a small home in rural Sarapiquí Costa Rica, in a town in which the people speak of the lack of respect of the banana companies in relation to distances to homes, schools, and rivers. Sarapiquí, Costa Rica, July 18, 2019
A banana plantation hosts a sign prohibiting entrance due to the application of agrochemicals. Sarapiquí, Costa Rica, July 17, 2019
The first pink pineapple I ever saw at a tourist rock climbing site in Costa Rica—before they were a thing. Even the locals I accompanied were in awe. Paraiso, Costa Rica, March 31, 2022
A community collaborator (an elementary school director) shows me a coffee plant they are growing at their school. This experience is just one of so many in which the locals have expressed their pride in Costa Rican coffee, and who can blame them? It’s delicious. Paraiso, Costa Rica, February 16, 2022
Roasted chocolate beans lie to dry under the hot tropical sun. They are shown to me as part of a private tour at “Costa Rica Best Chocolate” – a chocolate-centered tourist attraction. Chilamate, Costa Rica, February 13, 2022
Participants teach me how to make “olla de carne” the beloved soup of Sundays. Monteverde, Costa Rica, June 24, 2016
A small-scale semi-hydroponic farm expands across a hill on a cloudy day and we talk about how alternative agriculture such as this is a beautiful and welcome site in a country characterized by conventional monocultures. Monteverde, Costa Rica, June 18, 2016
FoodAnthropology 