Between Distribution and Consumption: On The Social Practices of Food Acquisition

Dr Hanna Garth (University of California San Diego)

Abstract

As food circulated across the globe more rapidly and more broadly, within the anthropology of food early work focused on illuminating the importance of food distribution in the production-distribution-consumption chain. Based on ethnographic research in Cuba and the United States, in this talk I argue that the link between distribution and consumption is not a given, and food acquisition should be considered an important step in the chain from production to consumption. A focus on acquisition reveals intimate forms of sociality, cultural norms for accessing food, and reveals the dynamic ways in which people negotiate their social positions through food. I call for robust analysis of the social and cultural processes of food acquisition that we see in various global contexts.

Between Distribution and Consumption: On The Social Practices of Food Acquisition

Speaker Biography

Hanna Garth, PhD, MPH is a sociocultural and medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of food. She conducts research in Cuba and Los Angeles. Focusing on the ways in which marginalized people overcome barriers to food access, she documents how people struggle to consume meals they understand as traditional and culturally relevant. She is currently assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of California San Diego, and beginning in Fall 2021 she will join the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. Dr Garth is the author of Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal (Stanford University Press, 2020) and the co-editor of Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice (University of Minnesota Press, 2020).

Organiser: SOAS Food Studies Centre

Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk