ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD

Anthropology of Food

Anthropology of Food

Introduction

Anthropologists study humans and human culture across space and evolutionary time; this includes the study of their own culture and social institutions. Subfields of the anthropological study of food include cultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeological anthropology. Food requires hunting, gathering, growing, storage, distribution, preparation, display, serving, and disposal, all of which are social activities. Topics for the anthropological study of food within a cultural system include economy, inequality, gender, status, hunter-gatherers, and food as a symbol.

Of basic interest to archaeologists is the diet or subsistence pattern of the peoples they study. Since seasonal patterns of movement are often linked to subsistence regimes, archaeologists frequently study the overall settlement-subsistence pattern. Other major topics of study related to food are the origins of agriculture, the process of plant and animal domestication, and the study of food ways (food in a social and cultural setting). With the help of interdisciplinary teams of specialists, archaeologists examine a variety of evidence such as animal bones (faunal analysis or zooarchaeology), plant remains (paleoethnobotany or archaeobotany), human bones (osteology), residues (chemistry), and the settlement system. Faunal and paleoethnobotanical analyses are able to determine diet (which animals and plants were eaten) as well as hunting, gathering, butchering, and preparation techniques, the identity of preferred or high-status foods, the seasonality of site occupation and diet items, and whether the animals/plants were domesticated.

Biological Anthropology

Topics in biological anthropology range from biological and nutritional questions about humans and primates (e.g., questions of nutrition, health, and evolution of human and primate physiology and diet ) to cultural practices and choices that affect biology and nutrition (e.g., dietary strategies and food selection choices). Cross-disciplinary themes include the process of human adaptation, population variation, and health. In many societies, medicine is not distinguished from food.

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropologists study human perception and communication, finding a close connection between how people perceive their world and the structure of their language. The field of folk taxonomy recognizes regularities in how humans perceive and categorize their natural world. A society's closeness to nature and sources of food will be reflected in how finely they are able to categorize plants and animals, and more salient plants and animals will be marked linguistically. Linguists who study folk taxonomy usually consider themselves ethnobotanists or ethnobiologists (Goody 2002 148-324).

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropologists pioneered the method of ethnographic data collection wherein the anthropologist lives among and participates in the daily life of the native culture over a period of months or years. Ethnographers attempt to situate the study of food within a community or culture, seeking to explain the interrelation between food systems and human behaviour.

Ethnobotany and Ethnobiology

Ethnobotany (study of the relationships between plants and peoples) and ethnobiology (study of the relationships between living organisms and humans) draw on the resources of each of the subdisciplines of anthropology as well as from other fields such as chemistry, botany, pharmacology, zoology, entomology, engineering, and so on (Johannessen 2000 182-205). A major concern of these disciplines is intellectual property rights—who ...