Food! Family, Community, Migration

Condon Hall, Rm 204
1321 Kincaid St.
UO campus

Anthropology Colloquium and Discussion

Professor Stephen Dueppen and graduate students Samantha King and Iván Sandoval-Cervantes, moderated by Professor Lynn Stephen

Food is at the heart of socio-cultural relations, shaping the dynamic ways in which families, communities, and international groups interact and form and express identities. This panel brings together diverse scholars for a multi-dimensional discussion of food throughout the world in the past and present. Iván Sandoval-Cervantes begins the panel with an exploration of how histories of conflict in land tenure systems, the core of food production, have shaped the nature of migration between the United States and Oaxaca Mexico and the creation of a transborder community. Next, within a context of globalization, Samantha King will discuss the changing nature of food production in the eastern Caribbean (Commonwealth of Dominica) from localized strategies to an internationally mediated practice influenced by discourses on sustainability and a movement towards agro-tourism. Lastly, Dr. Stephen Dueppen will examine the role of food and family in a West African village (Burkina Faso), past and present, to show how foods bind families together both in everyday practice and through ritual sacrifices that connect groups to their ancestor.