Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
As the most powerful instrument for expressing and shaping interactions between humans, food is the primary gift and a repository of condensed social meanings. Any food system has multiple dimensions (material, sociocultural, nutritional-medical), all of which interrelate. Food derives its ‘power’ from the web of the interrelations it evokes. Besides being of academic interest, the interconnectedness of production, distribution and *consumption has been acknowledged as central to the formulation of effective food policies.
Fieldworking anthropologists are well placed to research the levels and intersecting nodes at which food must be understood. They have long been interested in human diets, specifically in the sociocultural determinants of diet; changing patterns of food production and *markets; and food security at community and *household levels.
Increasingly, anthropologists are turning their attention to the socioeconomics of hunger, famine and food aid; and †agricultural development and food policy.
Anthropological studies of food draw inspiration from the pioneering research of †Audrey Richards (Richards 1939), in which the social dimensions of production, preparation, distribution and consumption were outlined, along with the dynamics of commensality. Food-focused ethnographies remain a model for those studying the social and nutritional impact of economic development. D’Souza (1988) has called for similar studies—famine ethnographies—to help prevent famine and improve relief efforts. Such studies require emphasis on the interrelationships between local, national, regional and international variables.
Anthropologists take a flexible approach to food and culture, because individuals at times have to choose between contradictory norms. The semiotic approach to food, championed by Appadurai (1981), highlights how the intellectual properties of food may be manipulated to solve this problem of choice.
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