MA Anthropology of Food
Duration: One calendar year (full-time); two or three years (part-time, daytime only). The expectation in the UK is of continuous study across the year, with break periods used to read and to prepare coursework.
Overview
Featured events
Minimum Entry Requirements: Minimum upper second class BA degree (or equivalent) in the humanities or social or natural sciences, or significant experience in a relevant food- and/or agriculture-related career
Food is a fundamental human necessity, essential to the sustenance of the human body. At the same time, food may be associated with pleasure, passion, even luxury. Food is also essential to the social body. Who eats what, who eats with whom, and whose appetites are satisfied and whose denied, are all profoundly social dynamics through which identities, relationships, and hierarchies are created and reproduced.
The SOAS MA programme in the Anthropology of Food offers students the opportunity to explore historically and culturally variable foodways, from foraging to industrial agriculture, from Europe and North America to Africa, Asia and South America. The programme asks students to trace the passage of food from plant to palate, and to examine who benefits, and who suffers, from contemporary modes of food production, exchange, preparation, and consumption. Students examine food policy at national and international levels, as well as the role played in its formation by the food industry.
Focus is given to the study of famine and the controversial role of food aid in securing food supplies. Debates over the impact of agricultural biotechnology on agrarian livelihoods and knowledge systems, as well as on the natural environment, are assessed. Movements toward organic agriculture, fair trade, and slow food are also analysed.
An anthropological approach to the study of food draws upon and challenges the perspectives of other disciplines, whether agronomy or nutritional science, economics or law, history or literature. Dependent upon individual interests and experiences, graduates of the programme may pursue research degrees in any number of academic disciplines, or find employment in food-related government ministries, international organizations, development agencies, or non-governmental associations, as well as in the fields of public health, education, and media, or in the catering industry.
Course teachers Johan Pottier, Harry G. West, and Jakob Klein were awarded the 2009 Excellence in Instruction Award by the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society.
Scholarships
Applicants for the MA Anthropology of Food may be eligible to apply for the Tallow Chandlers Scholarship, as well as other Scholarships and Bursaries.
Structure
The programme consists of four elements, including three examined courses and a Dissertation of 10,000 words.
- Core Course: Issues in the Anthropology of Food C - 15PANC013
- Core Course: Theoretical Approaches to Social Anthropology* - 15PANC008
* compulsory only for students without a previous anthropology degree; students exempted from Theoretical Approaches to Social Anthropology take two units of optional courses - Optional paper
For the third element of the course, students may select any of the following to total 1 unit (2 units if exempted from Theoretical Approaches to Social Anthropology, but with no more than 1 unit of courses marked with an asterisk, which are taught outside of the department of anthropology):- Directed Practical Study in the Anthropology of Food 15PANH045 (1 unit)
- A language (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of China - 15PANC089 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of Japan - 15PANC086 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of South Asia - 15PANC087 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of South East Asia - 15PANC088 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of the Near & Middle East- 15PANC097 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of East Africa - 15PANC084 (1 unit)
- Culture and Society of West Africa - 15PANC083 (1 unit)
- EITHER Comparative Study of Islam: anthropological perspectives A (Masters)
- OR Comparative Study of Islam: anthropological perspectives A (Masters) AND Comparative Study of Islam: anthropological perspectives B (Masters)
- Gender in the Middle East - 15PGNH001
- Gendering Migration and Diasporas - 15PGNH002
- African and Asian Diasporas in the Modern World - 15PANH010 (Term 1, 0.5 unit)
- Therapy and Culture – 15PANH027 (Term 1, 0.5 unit)
- Comparative Media Theory - 15PANH028 (Term 1, 0.5 unit)
- Issues in the Anthropology of Film - 15PANH022 (0.5 unit)
- Anthropology of Tourism - 15PANH049 (new course 2009-10)
- Perspectives on Development – 15PANH033 (Term 1, 0.5 unit)
- Political Economy of Development* - 15PDSC002 (1 unit)
- Globalisation and Development* - 15PDSH007 (1 unit)
- Agrarian Change and Development - 15PDSH026
- The Working Poor and Development - TBA (Term 2, 0.5 unit)
- Civil Society, Social Movements And The Development Process* - 15PDSH001 (0.5 unit)
- Famine and Food Security - 15PDSH022 (not running 2009-10)
- Intellectual Property Rights and Development* - 15PLAC113 (1 unit)
- Jainism: History, Doctrines and the Contemporary World* - 15PSRC024 (1 unit) (not running 2009-10)
- Jain Scripture and Community* - 15PSRC062 (1 unit)
- Media Production Skills
- 10,000-word dissertation on an approved topic
The fourth element of the degree is a 10,000 word dissertation on a topic agreed with the Programme Convenor of the MA Anthropology of Food and the candidate’s supervisor.
