Category Archives: awards

by | January 10, 2019 · 5:30 pm

ASFS Deadlines, Awards, Opportunities

There is a slew of deadlines, awards, and opportunities for anyone interested in the activities of the Association for the Study of Food and Society. These include an extended deadline for the best food studies conference in North America, student travel awards, and a search for a new editor of the ASFS flagship journal. See below and apply for whatever works for you. The deadlines are approaching fast for most of these.

ASFS Student Paper Awards

Received from Riki Saltzman, regarding the ASFS student paper awards (follow the link below for contact information):

Student Award Submission Guidelines

http://www.food-culture.org/asfs-student-paper-award/

Deadline for Annual Submission (all required material): February 1. NO Exceptions! Electronic submissions ONLY!

The ASFS invites current undergraduate and graduate to submit a paper for the William Whit (undergraduate) and Alex McIntosh (graduate) prizes, respectively. These awards recognize students’ contributions to the field of food studies. There will be one award each for an undergraduate student paper and a graduate student paper. ASFS welcomes submissions on a wide range of issues relating to food, society and culture, and from the diverse disciplinary and trans-disciplinary fields that ASFS encompasses. The author of each award-winning paper will receive:

* $500

* payment of annual membership and conference fees to be applied to the following year if student is not attending in the current year

* a free banquet ticket for the coming year’s annual meeting or the following year’s if a ticket has already been purchased or the student is not attending the conference in the current year; and

* the opportunity to present prize-winning papers at an ASFS/AFHVS conference. Winners who wish to present the year they receive their award must have submitted a conference abstract by the conference deadline in that same year.

Please note

* Authors are highly encouraged to simultaneously submit an abstract to the ASFS/AFHVS conference by the conference deadline. Conference organizers cannot add your paper to an already completed program; you MUST submit an abstract by the deadline.

* Prize winning papers may be presented at an ASFS/AFHVS conference within two years of award. Those prize winners who submit a conference abstract in the subsequent two years, should indicate their award status (year and name of award) with the abstract.

* Prize winners may also postpone their registration and banquet ticket use for one year following the award.

Follow the link above for additional information!

ASFS/AFHVS Conference Deadline Extended!

From the conference organizers:

The original late submission deadline for the 2019 Annual ASFS/AFHVS Conferences has come and gone — but your opportunity to submit a presentation proposal has not!  The schedule is nearly full, but we still have room.  Don’t miss your chance to learn, network, and explore in the breathtakingly beautiful (and delicious) State of Alaska!

The revised submission deadline is Jan 15.  

And, just like you should hustle to submit your abstract(s), you should also begin to explore your travel plan options NOW.  For our part, we’ll hustle to send out remaining acceptance notifications!  Alaska is a popular place to visit in the summer, and you want to make sure you get a good deal on your plane tickets and accommodations!  Note that Alaska Airlines is an award-winning national/international airline loved by Alaskans, and you might find better prices directly on their booking website:  alaskaair.com.  Alaska Airlines is also partners with several other airlines, so you might be able to earn and spend miles on your trip!  It’s a win-win!

We hope to see you this June, and we look forward to sharing so much of what Alaska has to offer.  Don’t forget to also check out the many food-focused pre-conference activities you have to choose from to make the most out of your stay.

Your conference organizers are here to help — please let us know if you have questions we can answer as you plan your trip to the 2019 Annual ASFS/AFHVS Conferences!

Here is the link for more information: https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/college-of-arts-and-sciences/programs/ASFS/call-for-papers.cshtml.

And wait, there is more! Travel grants and other awards have upcoming deadlines:

10 Student Travel Grants Available ($500 each) 

Deadline is January 15

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FMMV2XV

ASFS Local & Regional Grants

The deadline for the next cycle of grant funding is Jan. 15th.

http://www.food-culture.org/ASFS%20Grants/

ASFS Awards

The deadline for all awards (except student papers) is Feb. 1st.

3 book awards, article/chapter, pedagogy, graduate student & undergraduate student paper.

http://www.food-culture.org/awards/

Position Announcement:  Food, Culture and Society Editor-in-Chief

The Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) seeks a new editor for its journal, Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research.  FCS publishes five issues per year through Taylor and Francis. The five-year term begins July 1, 2019.

Duties include:

Overseeing the manuscript review process from submission to publication, including initial review of submissions, determining eligibility for peer review, overseeing the peer review process, providing guidance to scholars regarding article appropriateness, maintaining high quality academic scholarship, ensuring publication in a timely manner.  The position also requires communication with the FCS Editorial Board and ASFS leadership, preparation of an annual report, and hosting a journal board meeting at the ASFS annual conference. The position requires on average 8-10 hours per week.

Qualifications:

ASFS membership

An established record of scholarship in the field of food studies

Familiarity with (or willingness to learn) Taylor and Francis’s Editorial Manager article management software

A vision for food studies scholarship that aligns with the journal mission statement.

Compensation:

The Editorship comes with an annual stipend. The Editor may also select a Managing Assistant Editor, who also receives a stipend.

Please submit a one-page statement of interest to Amy Bentley at amy.bentley@nyu.edu  by February 15, 2019.  Qualified candidates will be interviewed via Skype.

Please contact current Editor Amy Bentley (amy.bentley@nyu.edu) for any questions regarding the position.

 

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by | July 6, 2018 · 9:00 pm

Want Fame and Glory? Award Deadline Reminders!

SAFN has two glorious awards that are given annually to students engaged in various aspects of food and nutrition related research. The deadline for both is coming up quite soon: July 27, 2018.

Do not miss the opportunity to have your research recognized!

Here are some details, follow the links below for more information on how to apply.

Thomas Marchione Award

Eligibility: all MA, MS or PhD students.

For research exploring “the best and more sustainable approaches to fulfill the right to food” in the words of Dr. Thomas Marchione, whom we honor in presenting this award.

This annual award will be granted to a student whose work addresses food as a human right, including a focus on food justice, food security and access, food sovereignty and other areas where social justice and food intersect. Students should apply, even if they have not fully completed their research, because work-in-progress, and proposed work will also be considered. The winner will be awarded a cash prize ($750) and a one -year membership to the AAA and SAFN.

More information here.

Questions? Contact Dr. Ryan Adams (adamsr@lycoming.edu), Lycoming College

Christine Wilson Award(s)

Eligibility: Undergraduate or graduate students currently enrolled (or enrolled in the last academic year).

The Christine Wilson Awards are presented to outstanding undergraduate and graduate student research papers that examine topics within the perspectives in nutrition, food studies and anthropology.

Papers may report on research undertaken in whole or in part by the author. Co–authored work is acceptable, provided that submitting student is first author. Papers must have as their primary focus an anthropological approach to the study of food and/or nutrition and must present original, empirical research; literature reviews are not eligible. Papers that propose a new conceptual framework or outline novel research designs or methodological approaches are especially welcome. Winners will be recognized and presented with an award at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association and receive a year’s membership in SAFN.

More information here.

Questions? Contact Dr. Ryan Adams (adamsr@lycoming.edu), Lycoming College

 The deadline for these awards is July 27, 2018.

 

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by | April 16, 2018 · 2:47 pm

CHNY Scholars Grant Awards 2018

From the Culinary Historians of New York, small grants of interest to SAFN readers who are engaged in current research projects. They do not have to focus on New York! May 24, 2018 deadline for submissions.

The Culinary Historians of New York Scholar’s Grant

The CHNY Scholar’s Grant promotes research and scholarship in the field of culinary history and is awarded annually to individuals seeking financial support for a current, well-developed project that will culminate in a book, article, paper, film, or other scholarly endeavor, including ephemera. The grants are unrestricted and can be used to defray research expenses, attend conferences, or engage in other activities related to the applicant’s project. The CHNY Scholar’s Grant is merit-based; financial need is not considered in making the award.

All recipients will present their findings to Culinary Historians of New York, either in an in-person program, as an article to be included in NYFoodStory: The Journal of the Culinary Historians of New York, or as another appropriate event. Further information is included in the Application and General Release Form.

Since 2012, the importance of the CHNY Scholar’s Grant has been recognized by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and rewarded with generous financial support. We are pleased to announce that the support has been increased this year, allowing CHNY to award THREE grants in the amount of $3,500, $2500, and $1,500, respectively.

Details on how and when to apply are here: https://www.culinaryhistoriansny.org/awards-grants/the-scholars-grant/.

Here are some of the previous winners (a more complete list is on the web site):

2017: Clare Alsup, Elizabeth Zanoni, Tove Danovich

Claire Alsup, “Colatura di Alici: How One Town on the Amalfi Coast Preserved Ancient Roman Fish Sauce” ($3500)

Elizabeth Zanoni ,”Flight Fuel: Pan Am and the Creation of Inflight Cuisines, 1930-1980 ($2500)

Tove Danovich, “When Kosher Isn’t Kosher: 100 Years of Murder, Crime, and Fraud” ($1500)

2016: Stacy Williams, Anthony Buccini

Stacy Williams, “Recipes for Resistance: Culinary Writings from American Feminists, 1875-2005” ($3,500)

Anthony Buccini, “From Kongri to Diri ak Djondjon: Slavery, Creolization, and Culinary Genesis in Saint Domingue and Independent Haiti” ($1,500)

2015: Francis and Bronwen Percival, Emily Arendt

Francis and Bronwen Percival, “Every up-to-date cheesemaker knows: How starter cultures changed cheese, 1880-1930” ($3,500)

Professor Emily Arendt, “Making Politics Palatable: Food and Partisanship in the Early American Republic.” ($1,500)

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by | October 30, 2017 · 7:23 pm

2017 Christine Wilson Award Winners!

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Christine Wilson Awards. These awards are presented to outstanding undergraduate and graduate student research papers that examine topics within the perspectives of nutrition, food studies, and anthropology. Award winners each receive a check from SAFN and a free one-year membership in the American Anthropological Association and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition. Of course, they also receive fame and glory.

The award committee this year was led by SAFN Vice-President Amy Trubek.

The awards will be officially presented to the winners at the SAFN reception during the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 1, 2017, from 7:45-9:00 pm, in Washington DC. In coming days, we will be posting more information about the upcoming meeting, so watch this space!

For now, congratulations to Sarah Howard, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London and to Kate Rhodes, an anthropology major at Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the two winning Christine Wilson Award papers. Their paper titles and abstracts are below.

Coffee and the State in Rural Ethiopia
Sarah Howard

Although coffee is enjoyed for the material qualities of its taste, smell and stimulant effect, it is the social and symbolic aspects of coffee drinking that make it central to daily life in Ethiopia. Based on research in eastern Amhara Region between 2011 and 2015, the paper explores the buna ceremony during which coffee is prepared and served, and its role in the lives of rural government workers. Starting with an interest in the disconnect between the reach and control that the Ethiopian government is popularly supposed to hold over its citizens and the lived reality of low-level state workers who are charged with exerting this control, I realised that coffee consumption could be a useful lens through which to review received ideas about state power and hierarchy. While Ethiopian society is commonly portrayed as highly authoritarian with a vertical power structure, this paper shows, through the medium of coffee practices, a range of forms of sociality between government workers and farmers, encompassing closeness and trust as well as highlighting the material and social disadvantages faced by the bureaucrats, complicating the picture of a strict divide between state and society. The kin-like social relations that are built between state employees through buna drinking help to mitigate their vulnerability, as well as build a space for them to critically reflect on their position in ‘producing the nation’. This paper is thus a contribution to calls for attention to the ways in which material practices, such as coffee drinking, continually constitute the state as a reality.

Having a Steak in the Matter: Gender in the Buenos Aires Asado
Kate Rhodes

Asados have their roots in the romanticized culture of the Argentine gauchos, or cattle herders, where men, free from the confines of urban life, could express their masculinity through cooking meat outside over an open fire. These macho characteristics have reinforced the notion that asados are a masculine activity. In this paper I address why it is that women cook on a daily basis, but the gastronomic identity of Argentina is rooted in the single dish men traditionally cook. I argue that the culturally accepted deviation from the historically feminine kitchen space can be explained through the symbolic importance of male interactions with meat throughout Argentine history, the construction of a masculine meat narrative, and a media that sustains traditional culinary gender norms. I break the concept of a masculine meat narrative down into the three factors that work to define meat as male, mainly the physical characteristics of an asado that link it to the time of the gauchos: fire, cooking outdoors, and the primitive manipulation of bloody meat. I supplement a review of the literature on this subject with opinions and anecdotes from informants which illuminate trends in perceptions of masculinity from both men and women. I conclude that the recent push for gender equality in Argentina, specifically the rise of the Ni Una Menos movement to end gender violence, is mirrored in asado culture, as women publicly take to the parrilla.

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by | July 18, 2017 · 8:54 pm

SAFN Award Deadlines Extended!

SAFN is pleased to announce that we are extending the deadlines for both the Christine Wilson Award and the Thomas Marchione Award to July 28, 2017.

Thomas Marchione Award

Honoring the seminal academic and humanitarian work of Thomas J. Marchione, this award is given to an MA, MS or Ph.D. student whose active engagement in food security and food sovereignty issues continues and expands Dr. Marchione’s efforts toward food justice, food access, and food as a human right. The award can be in recognition of exemplary work completed or in progress, or for proposed work in the field of food as a human right and the social justice aspects of food systems.

Ideally, the recipient will be working towards, in Dr. Marchione’s words, “the best and more sustainable approaches to fulfill the right to food.” There will be one annual award of $750 (this will include a 1 year student membership to the American Anthropological Association and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition).  The award may be for proposed or in-process research or a research prize for completed work. 

Eligibility: Open to Masters and Doctoral level students who will have completed their coursework and research proposal by the time of the annual American Anthropological Association meeting in the discipline of anthropology or allied fields (e.g. sociology, food studies, nutrition, etc.).  Students already engaged in relevant research, action or advocacy may apply in acknowledgement of their accomplishments.  Proposals must be focused on migrant and/or refugee communities in the United States or on developing world countries.

For more details on the award requirements, please visit: https://foodanthro.com/thomas-marchione-award/

NEW DEADLINE: JULY 28, 2017

Submit your application to Amy Trubek via email at atrubek@uvm.edu.

Christine Wilson Award

 The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition is pleased to invite students to submit papers in competition for the Christine Wilson Award. This award is presented to outstanding undergraduate and graduate student research papers that examine topics within the perspectives of nutrition, food studies, and anthropology.

Papers may report on research undertaken in whole or in part by the author. Co-authored work is acceptable, provided that the submitting student is the first author. Papers must have as their primary focus an anthropological approach to the study of food and/or nutrition and must present original, empirical research; literature reviews are not eligible. Papers that propose a new conceptual framework or outline novel research designs or methodological approaches are especially welcome. Winners will be recognized and presented with a cash award at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association and receive a year’s membership in SAFN.

Students (undergraduate or graduate) must be currently enrolled or enrolled during the past academic year. The text of papers should be no longer than 25 pages, double-spaced and follow AAA style guidelines.

The text of papers should be no longer than 25 pages, double-spaced and follow  AAA style guidelines.  Please delete identifying information and submit along with the CWA cover sheet.

NEW DEADLINE: July 28, 2017

Submit your application to Amy Trubek via email at atrubek@uvm.edu.

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by | June 8, 2017 · 3:41 am

New Deadline: Thomas Marchione Award!

Opportunity for the Recognition of

Outstanding Student Research

by applying for the

Thomas Marchione Award

Honoring the seminal academic and humanitarian work of Thomas J. Marchione, this award is given to an MA, MS or Ph.D. student whose active engagement in food security and food sovereignty issues continues and expands Dr. Marchione’s efforts toward food justice, food access, and food as a human right. The award can be in recognition of exemplary work completed or in progress, or for proposed work in the field of food as a human right and the social justice aspects of food systems.

Ideally, the recipient will be working towards, in Dr. Marchione’s words, “the best and more sustainable approaches to fulfill the right to food.” There will be one annual award of $750 (this will include a 1 year student membership to the American Anthropological Association and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition).  The award may be for proposed or in-process research or a research prize for completed work.  

Eligibility: Open to Masters and Doctoral level students who will have completed their coursework and research proposal by the time of the annual American Anthropological Association meeting in the discipline of anthropology or allied fields (e.g. sociology, food studies, nutrition, etc.).  Students already engaged in relevant research, action or advocacy may apply in acknowledgement of their accomplishments.  Proposals must be focused on migrant and/or refugee communities in the United States or on developing world countries.

For more details on the award requirements, please visit: https://foodanthro.com/thomas-marchione-award/

DEADLINE: JULY 14, 2017

Submit your application to Amy Trubek via email at atrubek@uvm.edu.

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by | February 20, 2017 · 5:28 pm

APLA Book Prize Announcement

From our colleagues at the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, a book prize competition that may be of interest to SAFN members and other readers of this blog:

The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) is pleased to invite nominations for the 2017 APLA Book Prize competition. The association will recognize work that best exemplifies creativity and rigor in the ethnographic exploration of politics, law, and/or their interstices.

Nominated books must be published in English during 2016. Books may be nominated by the author(s), the press, or an APLA member. Nominations must be accompanied by a nominating letter. Send the letter and a copy of the nominated book no later than May 1, 2017 directly to each of the APLA book prize committee members.

For more information on the APLA Book Prize along with submission and eligibility requirements, please visit: https://politicalandlegalanthro.org/2017/02/13/2017-apla-book-prize/.

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by | December 7, 2016 · 7:31 pm

ASFS Student Paper Awards

Students! Check out these awards for undergraduate and graduate essays from the Association for the Study of Food and Society. These are great opportunities for fame and recognition. If you have been studying and writing about food and have an essay, you should submit it. A brief summary is below, along with a link to the web site with complete details on how to apply. The deadline is February 1, 2017.

The ASFS invites current undergraduate and graduate students to submit a paper for the William Whit (undergraduate) and Alex McIntosh (graduate) prizes, respectively. These awards recognize students’ contributions to the field of food studies. There will be one award each for an undergraduate student paper and a graduate student paper. ASFS welcomes submissions on a wide range of issues relating to food, society and culture, and from the diverse disciplinary and trans-disciplinary fields that ASFS encompasses. The author of each award-winning paper will receive:

  • $500
  • payment of annual membership and conference fees to be applied to the following year if student is not attending in the current year
  • a free banquet ticket for the coming year’s annual meeting or the following year’s if a ticket has already been purchased or the student is not attending the conference in the current year; and
  • the opportunity to present prize-winning papers at an ASFS/AFHVS conference. Winners who wish to present the year they receive their award must have submitted a conference abstract in that same year.

Please note

  • Authors are highly encouraged to simultaneously submit an abstract to the ASFS/AFHVS conference by the conference deadline. Conference organizers cannot add your paper to an already completed program; you MUST submit an abstract by the deadline.
  • Prize winning papers may be presented at an ASFS/AFHVS conference within two years of award. Those prize winners who submit a conference abstract in the subsequent two years, should indicate their award status (year and name of award) with the abstract.
  • Prize winners may also postpone their registration and banquet ticket use for one year following the award.

Deadline for Annual Submission (all required material): February 1. NO Exceptions! Electronic submissions ONLY!

For complete details, visit this site.

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by | November 15, 2016 · 7:21 pm

Christine Wilson Award Winner, Part II

Yesterday we announced this year’s winner of the 2016 Christine Wilson Undergraduate Award and today we are proud to announce the winner of the 2016 Christine Wilson Graduate Award.This award goes to outstanding research papers by graduate students writing from the various perspectives embraced by Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, including nutrition, food studies and ethnography.

Congratulations to Imogen Bevan, from the University of Edinburgh, winner of this year’s graduate Christine Wilson Award, for her essay “Care is Meat and Tatties, Not Curry.” Her bio and an abstract for her essay are below.

Quick reminder: if you are a student who will be writing food research essays, consider applying next year!

The awards will be formally presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, this week, in Minneapolis! Please attend the SAFN reception, award ceremony, and distinguished speaker event on Saturday evening (11/19) to learn more about the winners and the awards. That will start at 7:45pm in room 101A.

Bio

Imogen Bevan is a postgraduate student in medical anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Imogen has conducted ethnographic research in France and in Britain, focusing on experiences of the body and examining how different substances are incorporated through social practices. During her master’s in social anthropology at the University of Lyon, Imogen participated in a joint program with the University of Amsterdam, becoming a junior researcher on Anita Hardon’s ChemicalYouth team. Her published ethnographic work examines people’s lived experiences of smoking and e-cigarette use in France, and the socialities that emerge through engagements with non-medicalised forms of substitution. This study experimented with sensory and creative visual methods to explore what technologies and substances might do for their users in social context.

Imogen’s master’s dissertation at Edinburgh and projected PhD research explore the role of sugar in social relationships in Scotland. This research asks how the value of sugar consumption is produced through everyday practices in different contexts of consumption, at a time when global health institutions denounce sugar’s nutritional ‘emptiness’ and aetiological role in the onset of obesity, diabetes type 2 and dental disease.

Imogen’s interests include anthropology of the body, sensory anthropology, health and well-being, kinship studies, and visual methods.

Abstract

Care is Meat and Tatties, Not Curry

This paper examines the way care is enacted by members of a Church of Scotland congregation through food provision and food preparation practices in Edinburgh. This ethnography compares three activities: The Foodbank, an informal weekly food distribution, and a non-profit café, sited in the parish church’s halls. Exploring an informant’s assertion that the church does not give people “any old food”, I chart the lives of different foods as they travel from supermarket shelves to church storage rooms, as they are transformed into emergency parcels, a hot meal, or iced display cakes – in the aim of improving the well-being of members of the community.

While the Trussel Trust’s standardised Foodbank guidelines are calculated in terms of dietary values, my study shows that in order to provide care, congregation members also work with other values – the palatability, familiarity, practicality, aesthetic and monetary values of food, eaters’ dignity, individual taste preferences and cooking technologies, as well as volunteers’ available time and physical safety. Some overlapped seamlessly, others clashed.  In all three settings, food-related care emerges as an ongoing compromise between competing contextual motives – a practice involving attention to detail, adjustments and extensive and tinkering.

Congregation members’ adjustable care goes beyond the marginalised individual. Through food, people are also caring for the survival of their church as a relevant institution, and its halls as a ‘living’ building. By grappling with what they see as the dangers of lack of money, lack of social interaction, or lack of culinary knowledge, congregation members ground their church within national and local networks, assigning the church an active role in changing community.

Written as an essay for a MSc ethnographic methods class, this study was conducted as exploratory fieldwork for my projected PhD research, which examines the value of sugar consumption in social relationships in urban Scotland.

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by | November 14, 2016 · 7:47 pm

Christine Wilson Award Winner, Part I

The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition is pleased to announce the winners for our annual Christine Wilson prize. This prize goes to outstanding research papers by undergraduate and graduate students writing from the various perspectives embraced by Society, including nutrition, food studies and ethnography. This year we received submissions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. All the submissions were excellent. SAFN Vice President Amy Trubek organized the whole process this year and deserves our gratitude for a job well done, along with all the readers of the papers.

It is time, by the way, to start thinking about next year. We encourage submissions for next year’s prize (due July 1, 2017). See the links above for details.

Today we are announcing our undergraduate prize winner. We will announce the graduate prize winner tomorrow.

The awards will be formally presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, this week, in Minneapolis! Please attend the SAFN reception, award ceremony, and distinguished speaker event on Saturday evening (11/19) to learn more about the winners and the awards. That will start at 7:45pm in room 101A.

Cynthia Baur, of Dickinson College, won this year’s undergraduate award with an essay on the local food movement in Carlisle, PA. Here is her bio and paper abstract:

Bio:

My name is Cynthia Baur and I am from Greensburg, PA. I graduated from Dickinson College in May 2016 with a BA in Anthropology with a self-declared focus in Nutritional Anthropology. My research interests developed while taking a course of the same title during my sophomore year. It was during my sophomore year that I also began working at the Dickinson Farm as a student farmer. My interest in farming continued into the following summer when I travelled to Tanzania with the Dickinson Anthropology Department to participate in an ethnographic field school in which I studied subsistence farming. During my junior year I added to my cross-cultural food experience by studying at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy through food studies program. In my senior year I delved into the local food movement in Carlisle by becoming a board member for the local farmers’ market and by becoming a work-share member at a nearby farm. I am currently an apprentice at the Dickinson Farm and next year I will be continuing on as a second year apprentice.

Abstract:

An Analysis of the Local Food Movement in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

In this paper I critically analyze the local food movement in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and the surrounding area. I argue that the local food movement is a response to a global, industrialized neoliberal food system. Consumers seek out a more personal alternative to anonymous industrially produced food. I use my own ethnographic work, such as interviews with farmers and participant observation at the farmers’ market, to understand the motivations of participating producers and consumers in Central Pennsylvania. I find that the local food movement in this area is not successful at giving all consumers access to local, healthy, and sustainable food. Individual participants are responding to a call to “vote” with their dollars to try to create change that will alter the entire food system. However, they are unsuccessful because they are acting within their individual capitalist identities. In addition, not all consumers have an equal opportunity to “vote” and the rhetoric often ignores certain components of food production, such as labor, adding to the elitism of the movement. Participants need to recognize the privilege and elitism that exists within the movement. While the local food movement may be unsuccessful at meeting all of its goals on its own, it is still a valuable component of a multi-level strategy for creating change within the food system.

 

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