In this episode, guest co-hosts Myriam Durocher and Irena Knezevic interview Hi’ilei Hobart and Emily Yates-Doerr on the theme of “food matters”, following their participation as keynote speakers at the international Conference “Food Matters and Materialities: Critical Understandings of Food Cultures”.  

The Food Matters Conference addressed how power relationships take form in contemporary food cultures and materialize in particular food matters/materialities as well as in a wide range of food-related practices (e.g., production, circulation, preparation, consumption). The event theme revolved around “matters”, a play on words that, on the one hand, reflects the will of the co-organizers to address how food matters and materialities emerge in and engage with particular food cultures and, on the other hand, reflects their will to explore food-related issues and their links with food cultures. In her keynote talk, Dr. Hobart shared insights from her fieldwork in an encampment at Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu at the summit of Mauna Kea, detailing practices of resistance led by Indigenous communities, and the role of food and ice in these practices. Dr. Yates-Doerr shared insights and stories emerging from her fieldwork in Guatemala, proposing reflections on how we might want to do and share research in food studies otherwise. In this interview, we highlight some key insights from their respective talks and bring out connections between their work.  

The audio editing of this episode was done by Laura Bruno.

For more info on the Conference: https://carleton.ca/foodmatters/

S2 E2 - Discussing Food Matters with Hi’ilei Hobart & Emily Yates-Doerr

Megan Carney (associate professor of anthropology, University of Arizona) and PhD student Deyanira Ibarra interview Rebecca de Souza and Adam Pine about their work "Hunger, Survivance, and Imaginative Futures: A Racial Analysis of the 'Right to Food'". This conversation followed a recent workshop led by Rebecca and Adam on racialized right to food and storytelling as part of the "Future of Food and Social Justice: A Youth Storytelling Project" at the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Rebecca T. de Souza (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an associate professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University. Her research is concerned with how communication, race, and political-economic systems impact access to food, health, and social wellbeing. Dr. de Souza’s critically acclaimed book Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries (2019), explores the role of stigma in the lives of food insecure individuals.

Adam Pine is a human geographer (Ph.D. Rutgers) with teaching and research interests in urban policy, race, and the global food system. His principal research projects examine the relationship between white supremacy and US urban planning, the interconnections between housing precarity and food insecurity, and how anti-racist food activists are fighting to institute the right to food in the US.

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S2 E7 - Racializing the Right to Food w/ Rebecca de Souza and Adam Pine

Nutrire CoLab members Megan Warin, Lauren Carruth, Dana Simmons, and Emily Yates-Doerr discuss and respond to the new Obesity Guidelines recently issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Megan Warin is professor of anthropology in the school of Social Sciences at the University of Adelaide. Her research focuses on the gendered dynamics of disordered eating, structural disadvantage and obesity, public health interventions around food, nutrition and alcohol, and public understandings of obesity science. Recent projects explore the value of epigenetics in the contexts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander science and intergenerational trauma, the reproduction of shame in DOHaD design, and models of social and radical care in Australia and Pacific locations. She and Tanja Zivkovic published Fatness, Obesity, and Disadvantage in the Australian Suburbs: Unpalatable Politics with Palgrave Press in 2019.

Dana Simmons is an associate professor of history at the University of California Riverside. Her research interests include hunger, nutrition, soil and plant science, political economy, the human sciences, feminist theory and technopolitics. Her book, Vital Minimum: Need, Science and Politics in Modern France, traces the history of the concept of the living wage as a measure of physical and social needs (Chicago 2015). She is currently working on a project tracing the science and politics of hunger. 

Lauren Carruth is an associate professor and medical anthropologist in the School of International Service at American University, where she specializes in humanitarian assistance, global health, nutrition, displacement, migration, and the Horn of Africa. Her book Love and Liberation: Humanitarian Work in Ethiopia's Somali Region, was published in 2021 by Cornell University Press. It focused on labor and inequity within the global humanitarian industry, drawing attention to subaltern systems of care and crisis response among local aid workers. She has also published on diabetes and zoonotics diseases among pastoralists, and the irregular migrations of Ethiopians for jobs in Persian Gulf states.

Emily Yates-Doerr is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and Oregon State University. Her research concentrates on health, food justice, and social inequality. Her previous project traced the emergence of obesity in the Guatemalan highlands, resulting in her book The Weight of Obesity: Hunger and Global Health in Postwar Guatemala (2015). She is finishing a book that offers a feminist critique of human capital and vitamin supplements in American (specifically US and Guatemalan) nutrition.

S2 E6 - Nutrire members respond to the American Academy of Pediatrics 2023 Obesity Guidelines

Citational politics and practices: Inspiration from the #CiteBlackWomen movement for teaching and research

Too often, citation is taught in mechanistic ways as a hurdle on the pathway to academic competency. Too rarely, it is framed as a dialogue among and between academics, a love letter, even, to those who have influenced our thinking. This is a problem when statistics show that disparities in citation reflect and reproduce disparities in academic admissions, hiring, funding and inclusion within and between institutions and scholars. In this episode, Nutrire CoLab member Alyshia Gálvez discusses the #CiteBlackWomen movement with its founder, Christen A. Smith, and scholar and founding editor of Feminist Anthropology, Dana Aín Davis; chemist Joshua Schrier; and her graduate students in an interdisciplinary course on citational politics and practices. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s concept of the “well worn path,” we puzzle over how to avoid reproducing citational practices as a well-worn path leading only to reproduction of inequality and hack the academic algorithms that conspire against us, adequately seeing and acknowledging quality scholarship.

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S2 E8 - Citational Politics and Practices

Abril Saldaña es doctora en sociología por la Universidad de Manchester, en el Reino Unido. Es profesora investigadora del Departamento de Filosofía de la Universidad de Guanajuato en México. Es experta en sociología médica, reproducción humana y social. Su trabajo incluye investigación sobre racismo y comida en el contexto del servicio doméstico; obesidad infantil y gordofobia. Sus últimos proyectos analizan la genómica de la obesidad desde los discursos médicos y científicos y bioética y edición del genoma humano en América Latina.

Tiana Hayden es doctora en antropología por la New York University en Estados Unidos. Es profesora investigadora del Centro de Estudios Demográficos, Urbanos y Ambientales en el Colegio de México. Su investigación se centra en la relación entre la producción y la gestión de espacios y los sistemas alimentarios urbanos, y en la relación entre las movilidades humanas y la alimentación. Realizó investigación en la ciudad de México sobre la regulación del comercio en la vía pública y su relevancia para la alimentación urbana, y sobre las transformaciones en el sistema de abastecimiento de alimentos en contextos de violencia e inseguridad. Sus investigaciones recientes se enfocan en las experiencias y luchas alimentarias de las personas migrantes y refugiadas en México, y en la relación entre trabajo, movilidad y cotidiana de las clases populares de la Ciudad de México. 

Miriam Bertran es doctora en Antropología Social y Cultural por la Universidad de Barcelona. Es profesora investigadora del Departamento de Atención a la Salud de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Se ha dedicado al estudio de los aspectos socioculturales de la alimentación, en particular en relación con la salud y la sustentabilidad. Su principal interés se centra en el análisis del impacto de la globalización en la gestión de la vida cotidiana y las decisiones alimentarias. Desde este enfoque ha participado en proyectos de investigación sobre alimentación, cultura y salud en diversas partes de México; gastronomía para el turismo en los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca y redes alimentarias alternativas en la ciudad de México. Ha sido asesora en proyectos para la definición de políticas públicas en alimentación y nutrición en México y otros países de América Latina. 

Sandra Aguilar Rodríguez es doctora en Estudios de género por la Universidad de Manchester y maestra en Estudios Latinoamericanos por la Universidad de Oxford en Reino Unido. Es profesora investigadora en el Departamento de Historia de la Universidad Moraviana en Pensilvania, Estados Unidos. Su trabajo explora raza, género y clase social a través de las prácticas culinarias y los discursos y políticas de nutrición entre 1920 y 1960 en México. Ha publicado su trabajo en revistas académicas de Estados Unidos, Inglaterra, Alemania y América Latina, además ha colaborado con capítulos en varios libros editados tanto en español como en inglés.

Alyshia Gálvez es doctora en Antropología Cultural por la Universidad de Nueva York (NYU) y actualmente es profesora de estudios Latinos y Latinoamericanos en Lehman College y de antropología en el programa de doctorado del Graduate Center de la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York (CUNY). Es autora de tres libros acerca de temas relacionados a la migración mexicana a EEUU, incluyendo Comiendo con el TLC: comercio, políticas alimentarias y la destrucción de México (Fondo de Cultura Económica/Itaca, 2022).

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S2 E9 - ¡Panza llena, corazón contento!: estudios sobre el comer y la comida en México

This episode features members of the Wiba Anung team, a partnership between faculty and students at Michigan State University and the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan. This partnership, that has worked together for fifteen years, supports Tribal early childhood development and broadens the understanding of how culture supports the health and well-being of Anishinaabe children and families of Michigan. The Anishinaabek include the Odawa, Ojibway, and Potawatomi nations who make up the member Tribes of the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan. 

Recently, the Wiba Anung team has been focusing on how Indigenous food access and food sovereignty are inextricably linked with health and education, and working together on the development of novel, culturally-centered educational materials and activities delivered through Tribal Home Visiting and Head Start programs. This project is called, Nourishing Michigan Indigenous Children with Cultural Health & Equity.

Members of the team share their work together in the co-generation of knowledge that centers Anishinaabe community grounded methodologies, family empowerment through Indigenous food-based practices, and sustainability of Indigenous food systems. They are, from the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan, Ann Cameron, Head Start Director, Michelle Leask, Program Manager for Maternal and Early Childhood Health, and Beedoskah Stonefish, AmeriCorps VISTA member through the Opioid Prevention and Education Network. Lisa Martin is Senior Research Associate at Johns Hopkins University Center for Indigenous Health; and from Michigan State University: Danielle Gartner, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Chelsea Wentworth, Assistant Professor in the Office of Medical Education Research and Development, and Heather Howard, Associate Professor in Anthropology, who facilitates the conversation.

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S2 E10 - Indigenous Food Sovereignty and Our Relational Responsibilities

In this episode, Natali Valdez interviews Megan Warin, a professor and social anthropologist at the University of Adelaide. Megan's research focuses on the gendered dynamics of disordered eating, structural disadvantage and obesity, public health interventions, and the politics of gender, class and race/racism in the fields of developmental origins of health and disease and epigenetics in the context of nutritional (and other) exposures. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and an International Fellow of the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity in the School of Anthropology at the University of Oxford. In collaboration with colleagues in Australia, UK and the US, Megan is currently working on an Australian Research Council project examining creative practices of care between Australian families that experience significant food insecurity and hardship in their communities.

Natali Valdez is a medical anthropologist and science and technology scholar who studies how race, gender, and power are enveloped into scientific knowledge production. Her book, Weighing the Future: Race, Science and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (University of California Press, 2022), is the first ethnography of ongoing pregnancy trials in the United States and United Kingdom.  Her ongoing and future research projects explore reproductive health, systemic racism, and generational trauma. She is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue, and from 2023-2024 she is a Presidential Fellow at Yale University.

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S3 E1 - Unpalatable politics: trifles and tensions in an Australian ethnography of obesity

This episode features a conversation about critical pedagogy among anthropologist Megan Carney, and graduate students at the University of Arizona, including Kianna Dieudonne, Deyanira Ibarra, Jamie Schafroth, Danielle Frinton, Sophie Kenyon, and Palaash Sabhlok. Together, they reflect on mobilizing and developing a collective pedagogy for the purposes of their feminist medical anthropology lab during the Spring 2023 semester. 

Scholars and readings cited in the episode:

Campt, T. 2014. “Black Feminist Futures and the Practice of Fugitivity” lecture https://bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/tina-campt-black-feminist-futures-and-the-practice-of-fugitivity/ 
Liboiron, M. 2021. Pollution is Colonialism.
Valdez, N. et al. 2022. “Duoethnography as Transformative Praxis.” Feminist Anthropology https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fea2.12085 
Diallo, O.M., Friborg, N.M. 2021. “Subverting the white cis gaze: Toward a pedagogy of discomfort, accountability and care in the anthropology classroom.” Teaching Anthropology 10(4): 17-35.
Aithamon, M. 2022. “Silence: A predicament for feminist anthropology and social innovation.” Feminist Anthropology 3(2): 373-380.
Novais, J. 2018. “Doctor of Vulnerability and Resilience.” In Feminism and Intersectionality in Academia (pp. 167-178). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG.
Pulley, N. 2019. “Vulnerability.” In Counternarratives from Women of Color Academics (1st ed., pp. 124-129). Routledge.
Dahoney, J. 2021. “Moving from survival mode to wellbeing in academia.” In Creating a Place for Self-care and Wellbeing in Higher Education (pp. 173-186). Milton: Taylor and Francis. 
Ohito, E.O. 2021. “‘Some of us die’: A Black feminist researcher’s survival method for creatively refusing death and decay in the neoliberal academy.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 34(6): 515-533.
Nash, J.C. 2023. “Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality.” Meridians 19. 
Gumbs, A.P. 2021. “The Shape of My Impact.” In Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought. Ed. Briona Simone Jones.
Gumbs, A.P. 2021. “Undrowned: Black feminist lessons from marine mammals: Why we need to learn to listen, breath and remember, across species, across extinctions and across harm.” Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture 78: 20-37.
Tachine, A.R. & Z. Nicolazzo. 2022. Weaving an Otherwise: In-Relations Methodological Practice. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing LLC. 
“Heart to Heart: Teaching with Love” from the book Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by bell hooks
Hope as a Discipline: Mariame Kaba on Dismantling the Carceral State https://theintercept.com/2021/03/17/intercepted-mariame-kaba-abolitionist-organizing/

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.


Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S3 E2 - Mobilizing a Collective Pedagogy

This episode features an interview with filmmaker and anthropologist Dr. Emily Cohen Ibañez prior to the screening of her documentary “Fruits of Labor” in Tucson, Arizona in November 2023. Together with Megan Carney, the two explore the connections among environmental and food justice, anthropology, and film (particularly participatory filmmaking) as a medium for storytelling and creative nonfiction. 

Learn more about Dr. Ibañez on her website: https://emilycohenibanez.com/

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S3 E3 - Exploring film and anthropology w/ Dr. Emily Cohen Ibañez

This episode features a conversation (in Italian) among Alessio Genovese, Daniele Saguto, Sara Vannini, and Megan Carney discussing the Palermo-based participatory storytelling lab also known as FunKino.

Alessio and Daniele are the co-founders of FunKino. Sara is a faculty member at the University of Sheffield. Megan is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. 

Zabbara website https://zabbara.org/

Read more about the project: https://www.sapiens.org/culture/archival-activism/

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520344518/island-of-hope

Link to the English transcription: https://docs.google.com/document/d/144mokDEWQ3An5eoamOdNWwTHyk5fUGrI/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113253736180877542692&rtpof=true&sd=true

Nutrire CoLab is produced in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and the UA Center for Regional Food Studies.

Original music provided by Lazaro Gálvez.

S3 E4 - Participatory Storytelling in Borderlands (in Italiano!)

S2 E2 - Discussing Food Matters with Hi’ilei Hobart & Emily Yates-Doerr

Nutrire CoLab

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