SOAS University of London

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Jakob Klein

  • Overview
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Expertise
  • Publications

Overview

Teaching

Programmes Convened
Courses Taught
PhD Students supervised
  • Anna Cohen, Ridley Road and Broadway Market: Food markets, social change, and the construction of community in Hackney’s ‘Urban Village’ (working title)
  • Chenjia Xu,
  • Elisa Tamburo, "Anthropology of Moving House: the re-making of home among the mainlanders’ diaspora in Taiwan"
  • Hannah Roberson, Food movements in the ‘Big Society’
  • Leo Pang, An Ethnographic Study of Ecological Food Entrepreneurs in China (Working Title).
  • Mukta Das, Social Delicacies: Indian Restaurants in Guangzhou.
  • Petra Matijevic,
  • Yun Miao, Being Tibetan in Shangri-La: Tibetans' interactions with development projects in Southwest China
  • Ze Chen, Marrying the other: Marrying the other: Local ethnic boundaries and the politics of inter-ethnic marriage on Hainan Island

Research

Since the late 1990s I have been carrying out research in southern China, with a particular emphasis on the anthropology of food. Previous research concentrated on the city of Guangzhou (Canton), where I explored the transformation of regional cuisine and restaurant/teahouse culture under socialism and postsocialism (Klein 2006, 2007, 2008 (Enduring Socialism)).

I have recently completed research, begun in 2006, which examines the emergence of networks in and discourses on ‘ecological’ foods in Kunming, Yunnan province. The study focuses especially on activism and household food consumption, and charts Kunmingers’ various reactions to a rapidly changing food supply system. It sheds light on contemporary urban Chinese approaches to the countryside, locality, the environment, food safety hazards, health, development, and social differentiation (Klein 2009, 2013 (China Quarterly)). This research contributes to wider debates concerning ‘ethical consumption’ and ‘alternative food networks’, not least in postsocialist contexts (www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520277403). It also ties in with discussions on meat-eating and vegetarian movements in transnational perspective (Klein 2008 (South Asia)).

My current research concerns the transformation of regional cuisines and local speciality foods in China, with a focus on Yunnan Province (Klein 2013 (Food and History)). I am particularly interested in exploring how the trans-regional and transnational movements of foods, tourists, technologies, hygiene regulations, and ideas of heritage are impacting on producers and consumers of Chinese ‘local’ foods.  

Expertise

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Available for
  • TV
  • Radio
  • Press
  • Briefings
  • Special Study Programmes
  • Short Term Consultancy
  • Long Term Consultancy
Regional Expertise
  • East Asia
Country Expertise
  • China
Languages
  • Swedish

Publications

Jump to: Edited Books or Journal Volumes | Book Chapters | Articles

Edited Books or Journal Volumes

Klein, Jakob A. and Watson, James L., eds. (2016) The Handbook of Food and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Staples, James and Klein, Jakob A. , eds. (2016) Consumer and Consumed: Humans and Animals in Globalising Food Systems. Special Issue of Ethnos. London: Ethnos. (Forthcoming)

Jung, Yuson and Klein, Jakob A. and Caldwell, Melissa L., eds. (2014) Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Klein, Jakob A. and Murcott, Anne, eds. (2014) Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Latham, Kevin and Thompson, Stuart and Klein, Jakob A., eds. (2006) Consuming China: approaches to cultural change in contemporary China. London; New York: Routledge.

Book Chapters

Watson , James L. and Klein , Jakob A. (2016) 'Introduction: Anthropology, Food and Modern Life.' In: Klein, Jakob A. and Watson, James L., (eds.), The Handbook of Food and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 1-27.

Klein, Jakob A. (2015) 'Eating Green: Ecological Food Consumption in Urban China.' In: Kim, Kwang Ok, (ed.), Re-Orienting Cuisine: East Asian Foodways in the Twenty-First Century. New York; Oxford: Berghahn , pp. 238-262. (Food, Nutrition, and Culture: Volume 3)

Klein, Jakob A. and Jung, Yuson and Caldwell, Melissa L. (2014) 'Introduction: Ethical Eating and (Post)socialist Alternatives.' In: Jung, Yuson and Klein, Jakob A. and Caldwell, Melissa L., (eds.), Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1-24.

Klein, Jakob A. (2014) 'Connecting with the Countryside? "Alternative" Food Movements with Chinese Characteristics.' In: Jung, Yuson and Klein, Jakob A. and Caldwell, Melissa L., (eds.), Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 116-143.

Klein, Jakob A. (2014) 'Introduction: Cooking, Cuisine and Class and the Anthropology of Food.' In: Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Klein, Jakob A. and Pottier, Johan and West, Harry G. (2012) 'New Directions in the Anthropology of Food.' In: Fardon, Richard and Harris, Olivia and Marchand, Trevor H. J. and Nuttall, Mark and Shore, Cris and Strang, Veronica and Wilson, Richard A., (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 293-302.

Klein, Jakob A. (2009) 'Chinese meals: diversity and change.' In: Meiselman, Herbert L., (ed.), Meals in science and practice: interdisciplinary research and business applications. Cambridge: Woodhead, pp. 452-482.

Klein, Jakob A. (2008) '"For eating, it’s Guangzhou": regional culinary traditions and Chinese socialism.' In: West, H. and Raman, P., (eds.), Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation. Oxford; New York: Berghahn.

Klein, Jakob A. (2006) 'Changing Tastes in Guangzhou: Restaurant Writings in the Late 1990s.' In: Latham, K. and Thompson, S. and Klein, J., (eds.), Consuming China. Approaches to Cultural Change in Contemporary China. London; New York: Routledge, pp. 104-120.

Articles

Staples, James and Klein, Jakob A. (2016) 'Consumer and Consumed.' Ethnos. pp. 1-20.

Klein, Jakob A. (2016) 'Buddhist Vegetarian Restaurants and the Changing Meanings of Meat in Urban China.' Ethnos. pp. 1-25.

Klein, Jakob A. (2013) 'Everyday approaches to food safety in Kunming.' The China Quarterly, 214. pp. 376-393.

Klein, Jakob A. (2013) '“There is no such thing as Dian cuisine!” Food and local identity in urban Southwest China.' Food and History, 11 (1). pp. 203-225.

Klein, Jakob A. (2009) 'Creating ethical food consumers? Promoting organic foods in urban Southwest China.' Social Anthropology, 17 (1). pp. 74-89.

Klein, Jakob A. (2008) 'Afterword: Comparing Vegetarianisms.' South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies, 31 (1). pp. 199-212.

Klein, Jakob A. (2007) 'Redefining Cantonese cuisine in post-Mao Guangzhou.' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70 (3). pp. 511-537.

This list was generated on Sun Jul 23 03:25:35 2017 BST.