AP/ANTH 3190 6.00 Food, Eating, and Nutrition in Cross-cultural Perspective

This course explores the social and cultural basis of human food systems using a cross-cultural approach. Nutritional anthropology, a subfield of medical anthropology, integrates an understanding of human biology with the social and cultural basis of human food systems. Our study of food and eating requires assembling an understanding of the food system from multiple theoretical perspectives and through numerous case studies and ethnographic examples. We begin by examining cultural food meanings in different contexts, and cross-cultural perspectives on nutrition and health promotion. A second part of the course examines the transformations of food, nutrition and foodways, beginning with our understanding of foraging, and following nutritional transitions through early agriculture, the rise of industry, and the current hegemony of large food corporations. We also take a look at the globalization of particular foods, and the specific topics of obesity and sugar consumption. A third part of the course examines the construction of identities and subjectivities through food. We probe the intersections between food and eating in relation to race, gender, ethnicity, nationality and religion. The final part of the course explores food sovereignty and current food movements, considering anti-GMO activism, transnational peasant movements, experiments in sustainable agriculture, permaculture and biodynamic methods, the building of resilient community food systems, and solidarity purchase groups.

Course Director: K. Schmid - kschmid@yorku.ca