Critical Food Studies Network: Student Spotlights
Monday 2 June, 5:15-6:30pm
History of the Book Room, Faculty of English, St. Cross Building, Manor Rd, Oxford OX1 3UQ
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Sacha Mouzin, ‘Baladi in Northern Lebanon’
Sacha Mouzin is a 3rd year Franco-Lebanese DPhil student in Social Anthropology, having just returned last summer from one year of ethnographic fieldwork in Lebanon, living few days a week with one family of pastoralists and interviewing people along the food supply chain of meat, milk and cheese. Sacha’s general academic interests revolve around environmental anthropology, the anthropology of food consumption and production and political ecology.
Abstract: In this talk, I will present a chapter of my anthropology thesis on pastoralism in Lebanon focusing on the concept of ‘baladi’ (local, homemade) food, its different aspects and implications in Northern Lebanon. In recent years, Lebanon has witnessed a resurgence of interest in ‘baladi’, through organic and souvenir shops, and various ‘back to the land’ movements. Yet, at the same time, people actually working the land or with herds are in constant decline as the rural areas continue to be depleted. What does it mean to hence connect to a rural imagery at the level of discourse rather than practice? And, conversely, what do people still concerned with ‘baladi’ food in rural areas strive to achieve? I will argue that the concept of ‘baladi’ sheds light on different, sometimes clashing, ideals of modernity and food production.
Tara Jittalan, ‘Stories ‘conveyed through spices and recipes’: motherhood and food in Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Sugarbread’
Tara Jittalan is a second-year DPhil student at the Faculty of English. Her thesis focuses on the interactions between women and food in contemporary Singapore literature, exploring how such interactions allow disruptions to and rethinkings of Singapore’s national narratives, delving into issues such as motherhood, war, and work. Her research interests include Anglophone Southeast Asian literary studies, postcolonial studies, food studies, and gender studies.
Abstract: This presentation examines the relationship between food, motherhood, literature, culinary cultures, cosmopolitanism, and multiculturalism in postcolonial Singapore. In recent years the state has been endeavouring to fulfil a cosmopolitan vision of Singapore, often at odds with its postcolonial policies of multiculturalism, dubbed ‘multiracialism’. Focusing on two Sikh women in Balli Kaur Jaswal’s 2016 novel Sugarbread, I argue that instances of maternal provision of food in the text meaningfully negotiates these tensions between cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. Through such negotiations, the novel offers a dissenting version of Singaporean cosmopolitanism, one that challenges its usual image in the world.
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Critical Food Studies Network is part of TORCH Student Networks
