SOAS University of London

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Dr Jakob Klein

  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Expertise
  • Publications

Overview

Jakob Klein
Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

SOAS China Institute

Academic Staff, SOAS China Institute

SOAS Food Studies Centre

Chair, SOAS Food Studies Centre

Name:
Dr Jakob Klein
Email address:
Telephone:
020 7898 4428
Address:
SOAS University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Building:
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office No:
564
Academic Support Hours:
Wed, 11:00-13:00 by appointment
Internal Supervisors

Teaching

Programmes Convened
Modules 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)
  • Anna Colquhoun, Food and tourism in Istria: Local specialities and the construction of a region (working title)
  • Elisa Tamburo, “Moving House: place, time and the politics of urban relocation in a Taipei military village”
  • Hannah Bennett, Golf Course Culture in China: An Exploration of Gender, Class, and Social Stratification
  • Hannah Roberson, Food movements in the ‘Big Society’
  • Leo Pang, An Ethnographic Study of Ecological Food Entrepreneurs in China (Working Title).
  • Mukta Das, Spicing the China Dream: South Asians, Food and Belonging in Guangzhou, Macau and Hong Kong
  • Nora Katharina Faltmann, Food Safety in Vietnam’s changing Urban Foodscape – Of Body Politics, Access and ‘Beautiful’ Carrots in Ho Chi Minh City
  • Petra Matijevic, On the Fringes of the European Union: Food Self-sufficiency and the Eurozone Crisis in Slovenia
  • Theodore Charles, Crossing Borders; The Evolution of Food Traditions in Post-Ottoman Thrace
  • 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 (UC Press' Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World ). 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

For help in contacting SOAS academics and advice on services to business and the community, please contact SOAS Enterprise on +44(0)20 7898 4837 or email enterprise@soas.ac.uk.
For all press and media enquiries please call +44 (0)20 7898 4135 or email press@soas.ac.uk

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

Publications

Articles

Jump to: Articles | Edited Books or Journals | Book Chapters |

Klein, Jakob (2020) 'Ambivalent Regionalism and the Promotion of a New National Staple Food: Reinventing Potatoes in Inner Mongolia and Yunnan'. Global Food History, (6) 2, pp 143-163.

Klein, Jakob (2020) 'Eating potatoes is patriotic: state, market and the common good in contemporary China'. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. [Forthcoming]

Klein, Jakob A. (2018) 'Heritagizing Local Cheese in China: Opportunities, Challenges, and Inequalities'. Food and Foodways, (26) 1, pp 63-83.

Klein, Jakob A. (2017) 'Buddhist Vegetarian Restaurants and the Changing Meanings of Meat in Urban China'. Ethnos, (82) 2, pp 252-276.

Staples, James and Klein, Jakob A. (2017) 'Consumer and Consumed'. Ethnos, (82) 2, pp 193-212.

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.

Edited Books or Journals

Jump to: Articles | Edited Books or Journals | Book Chapters |

Staples, James and Klein, Jakob A., (eds.), (2017) Ethnos – Volume 82, Issue 2 (2017): Includes the Theme Issue: Consumer and Consumed: Humans and Animals in Globalising Food Systems. London: Taylor & Francis.

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

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

Jump to: Articles | Edited Books or Journals | 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.

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'. 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.

 

This list was last generated on Monday, 10th August 2020, 17:30 Europe/London.