Critical Studies in Food and Culture

We call for papers towards an edited volume tentatively titled Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food and South Asia.

Globalization makes national boundaries porous, as people, culture, goods, and ideas, move from one part of the world to another. New links are forged between the social structure and economy, between global markets and local governments, and between diverse cultures and peoples. During the process of globalization, the categories of the 'local' and the 'global' which were previously distinct, now become increasingly interwoven and problematized. This volume seeks to explore these changing categories in the globalizing world, by using the production and consumption of food, in and of South Asia as a lens with special emphasis on identity formation and maintenance.

The preparation and consumption of food affects various aspects of identity such as ethnic affiliation, gender constructs, notions of hierarchy, regional, micro regional, caste, and class based affiliations, national identity and so on. Food can be used variously as a signifier of cosmopolitanism, globalism, localism, traditionalism, or nationalism, and this book will discuss these various ideas with specific ethnographic examples located in of South Asia.

We are interested in papers that focus on a number of themes:
. The entry of multi national food corporations into South Asia and the response to these foods
. The rise of a global food industry in South Asia
. South Asian foods and Identity
. The history of South Asian foods and spices, and their globalization through colonization
. The Mughal empire, travel and food
. The British Empire, colonial discourse and food
. South Asian urbanism and street food
. Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants and the politics of the diaspora in the UK, Australia and the Middle East
. Women, food and the family: contemporary ethnographies
. The South Asian diasporic family and the relationship to food, and culture
. Nostalgia, the homeland and identity enacted and performed through food
. Menus, cookbooks and the reading of the diasporic condition
. Micro regional and caste based foods in South Asia and their global faces
. Nepali cuisine with its many variations, rural and urban divides
. Sri Lankan cuisine, travel and the exoticization of south Asian food
. Bangladeshi cuisine, chefs and international food markets
. Pakistani cuisine, specialty restaurants and the Middle East markets
. The popularity of South Asian "curry" in Japan and other Asian countries
. The recent popularity of South Asian foods and their connections (perceived or otherwise) with a medical therapeutic politics of being
. The politics of authenticity and the return to "indigenous" foods
. The emergent agro industry in South Asia and the changing face of urban food
. Urban foods of South Asia and their globalization
. The exoticization of South Asian foods, travel and new forms of representation
. Any other themes of interest

Please email a 500 word abstract to:

Tulasi Srinivas
Assistant professor of Anthropology
Emerson College
Tulasi_Srinivas@emerson.edu

The deadline for receiving abstracts is September 30, 2008. The abstracts must contain affiliation details as well as current contact information.

Editors will review the abstracts and authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to contribute to an edited volume by December 1, 2008. Submission date for final drafts is March 1, 2009.

Joint Editors:

Tulasi Srinivas
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Emerson College
and
Krishnendu Ray
Assistant Professor
Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health
New York University