Course Syllabus

 

Anthropology of Food D

Semester & Location:	Fall 2024 - DIS Copenhagen
Type & Credits:	Elective Course - 3 credits
Major Disciplines:	Anthropology, Environmental Studies, Food Politics
Faculty Members:	Camilla Hoff-Jørgensen - current students use the Canvas inbox
Time & Place:	Tuesdays and Friday 13:15-14.35 in N7-B21

Description of Course

”You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.” Those were some of the words of the humble and proud chef, and food traveler Anthony Bourdain. Similar words had been said by the 19th-century epicure, politician, and gastronome, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, when he said, “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are”. Bourdain’s food-filled journeys to cities with fabulous restaurants and street kitchens and rural exotic local treats showed the abundance of food cultures and ways of using food in a local context. 

 

Anthropology

The learning outcome objective for anthropology is getting high level of cultural awareness. Studying humans sense making in contrast to only basing an argument on numbers or statistics helps you to empathize with different cultures and understand how they order their world. When communicating with people in cross-cultural setting, this social and cultural understanding can be invaluable and minimize misinterpretations and generalizations. Anthropology is based in social theories about human social behavior and in qualitative data collection methods; interviews, observations, discourse analysis.  

 

Studying food culture
Anthropologists explore how cultural identities are shaped and in Anthropology of Food, we focus on the human relations to and use of food. Eating is more than sustenance and enjoying the taste of it. When we buy food and eat it, we communicate meaning that creates identities, maintains social bonds, and sustains cultures. This makes eating not only a nutritional act but also a social and cultural act.

These are some of the questions you will get equipped to answer during the course.

• What have alcohol to do with the coming of age in Denmark?
• What migratory food flows are now essential to Copenhagen's food scene?
• Why do some see the friend-bonding qualities of eating an original burger, while others see climate crisis issues?
• Why do Michelin-starred restaurants in Copenhagen now flaunt their uses of sustainable, local, seasonal ingredients and organic natural wine when Denmark is knows for its conventional pork industry?
• What does masculinity have to do with barbecuing? 
• How can one’s educational level influence what you buy?
• Why is the natural wine narrative so important to Italian environment students? 
• Is pork essential in Danish food culture? 
• How does some manage uncertainties with lemon and ginger tea? 
• How does architects work with anthropologist when creating urban food spaces? 

 

During our classes, we’ll make the theoretical subject come to life by talking to Post-New Nordic chefs, farmers, public health officials, artisans, and food historians about what we eat, and what it reveals about their respective cultures. We will do fieldwork in food marked, classic bodegas, and Middle-Eastern Kebab restaurants, explore food and wine tastings and get a sense of the neighborhoods of Copenhagen.

Students will get acquainted with the anthropological perspectives on the topic of food, get immersed deeply into the Scandinavian eating culture, and the Nordic culinary revival, and investigate the role of the city in rethinking our food systems. 

 

Learning Objectives

The overall objective of the course is to enable students to understand the disparate social and cultural meanings of food. The course aims to endow them with a strong sense that food is more than what is served on a plate and provide them with a valuable toolkit filled with impressions, experiences, approaches, and concepts with which they would be able to better understand the practice of eating. 

By the end of the course, students should have:

• developed a sense of the culinary cultures of Denmark and other countries and how these relate to broader cultures;
• an understanding of how to analyze the role of food in forging an identity on an individual and collective levels;
• learn how to think critically about food as a reflection of social, political, and economic phenomena
• greater knowledge of the fields of anthropology and sociology and how these disciplines approach the study of food
• the ability to use anthropological methods of inquiry to critically reflect on the role of food in culture in cultural practice;

 

Readings

There is no textbook for this course and most readings are found exclusively on Canvas.

Anthropological Theory

• Ariel (2012). The Hummus Wars. Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. 12. 34-42. 
• Bourdieu (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

• Swinbank  (2002). "The Sexual Politics of Cooking: A Feminist Analysis of Culinary Hierarchy", in Journal of Historical Sociology Vol. 15 No. 4 December 2002
• Tjørnhøj-Thomsen and Ploug Hansen(2015). "Managing Uncertainties, Gaining Control: The Magic of Foods and Words" in Steffen, V., Jöhncke, S., & Raahauge, K. M. (red.) (2015). Between Magic and Rationality (eds. Jöhncke, Steffen, Vibeke Steffen & Kirsten Marie Raahauge): On the limits of reason in the modern world. (Critical Anthropology udg.) København: Museum Tusculanum. (Critical Anthropology, Vol. 4).

This is a selection of the course readings. The complete readings will be available on Canvas.

 

Field Studies

During the semester the two field studies will provide the possibility to explore and taste.

Guest Lectures

During the course, we will go out and visit locations or have speakers come and visit us. These will be announced during the semester.  

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to participate actively in all classes and field studies and be open-minded to their fellow student’s contribution to the class. The aim is to establish an environment where we can learn from each other as well as from the texts and cases we engage with, and you are expected to actively support this approach.

Theory vs Taste. Note that anthropology is a demanding field. Not only are students expected to read social theories and discuss them in class, they are also expected to conduct field work among locals ( interviews, photos, participant observations). This requires a willingness to engage with people of a different culture, and be ready for situations where English is not the dominant language. Since this course study culture through food, this can mean that students must move out of their comfort zone and experience new flavor profiles and textures. 

Students are expected to to attend all class sessions unless prevented by an emergency, and to complete all the assigned reading and be prepared for in-depth cultural discussions. 

Our class discussions demands full engagement from all and students are therefore not allowed to use a laptop or smartphone in class.

Considerations will, of course, be taken if you have special needs for a computer for note-taking. Please speak to the Office of Academic Support to request accommodations. In some specific cases, you may be requested to use an electronic device for quick/ad-hoc research on the Internet. Any misuse of trust will be reflected in your engagement grade.

Students are expected to do field work including taking pictures, mapping food scenes, interviewing people in the street and to engage with the local life, we study. 

 

Approach to Teaching

The methods used to cover class materials include lectures, videos, discussions, individual and group presentations, workshops, guest lectures, and field trips. Periodically we will split up into smaller groups to review and analyze the material more thoroughly. The course will have several out-of-the-classroom sessions on location to experience the different facets of food firsthand. Students are expected to be able to find and be at the external locations on time. The external locations will not be far from DIS's location and maps and addresses will be given in advance. Office hours are held after class or by appointment.

 

Faculty

Camilla Hoff-Jørgensen, Cand.scient in Social Anthropologist (Lund University) BA.sceint.anthr. and BA.scient In Human Nutrition: Food Production (Copenhagen) and research consultant in Food Culture Studies. Camilla is a faculty in the fields of medical and food anthropology. She has worked with food and food culture at many levels, from the biochemistry of the nutrients in the food, food production, and distribution, and the cultural use of food in different contexts; Japan, Thailand, Spain, and Denmark. She is currently working on experience design studies, one covering restaurant NOMA's reaction to COVID-19 and another covering the McDonald's Gourmet Burger. 

Office hours are held after class or by appointment.

Feel free to follow the Instagram of this course for students, https://www.instagram.com/p/CVkGVybMDpu/

 

Evaluation

Students will be evaluated on their ability to understand, discuss, and communicate theories within the Anthropology of Food as well as interpret them meaningfully. These skills will be the primary focus of evaluations. Group work in class and in the field as well as the student's ability to contribute to a group effort will be taken into account for the grade.

 

Grading

Your grade consists of the following four elements:

Assignment	Percent
Class Engagement  (individual)	30 %
Applied Theory in Practice (individual)	15 %
Understand a Foodscape with Thick Description and Mapping (2 group tasks)	30 %
Flesh, Juice and Alcohol - The food culture around us (group tasks)	25 %

•  Class engagement (30%). (Indivudual)

Engagement entails among others: active participation in class discussions, preparation for each class, reading of assigned texts, reflection on reading, and active participation in field studies. This grade is given first around the midterm, to indicate to the students where they are at. Then the grade is adjusted at the end of the semester, when students have had a change to know where they are at grade wise and improve if neccesary. 

 

• Applying theory to your analysis - Bourdieu visits Torvehallerne (15%) (Individual)

Method: Theoretical analysis

Food and the Capitals (Bourdieu), The paper should consist of an analysis where students apply a theory to a case about foods and food practices that you encounter (cuisine, ingredient, dish, cultural habit, taboo, etc). This demands that you go out and explore your community. Students are not required to buy expensive food goods, but through their daily meals and meeting with the food offered in their community (hot dog stand, café latte, products in the supermarket, delivery services), students are required to analyze on the cultural sense-making in a given context. Strong posts will not only describe those foods and practices, but analyze them, and the reflection itself will be evaluated for the quality of its insights, references to readings, interpretations, writing, and use of anthropological theories. You may include photos, videos, or any other media you see fit. (Theoretical assignments).

 

• Understand a Foodscape with Thick Description and Mapping (2 group tasks) (Group) (30%). 

Method: Methodological analysis: 1task  include mapping and 2nd task include photo journal and observation

1st This assingment show the students ability to work with a mapping tool in understanding access to food in a foodscape. 

2nd This assignment shows the student's ability to understand the methods of participant observation and the ability to describe and explain a Danish cultural phenomenon through photos and cultural analysis. 

 

• Flesh, Juice and Alcohol - The food culture around us (Group) (30 %)

Method: Litterature review and interviewing

A collection of essays, film, interviews, podcasts, photography and more on our changing relationship to the food and beverage we incorporates into our bodies. Students decide in groups of 4 what contemporaty food culture they what to study. The groups can work with migrant food and belonging or something very differnt as, Danish teenage alcohol consumtoption, 'the family meal' or how contemporary environmeltal and social pressures on the consumer impact what they buy. The task include a broad desk rearch and 4 interview and a critical analysis of the data collection. 

 

 

To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work.

 

More detailed assignment descriptions can be found under Assignments.

 

 

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on: 

• • Course Enrollment and Grading  
  • Academic Expectations and Honor Code 

Students must always check canvas for changes, but here is a PDF of the syllabus