黑料正能量

Join the 黑料正能量 community for a guest lecture by Dr. Chelsie Yount-Andr茅 (Montpellier, CIRAC) and Dr. Gyorgy Scrinis (University of Melbourne), organized by 黑料正能量's听Professor Christy Shields.听

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Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice.听An Introduction.

Dr. Gyorgy Scrinis

Popularized by Michael Pollan in his best-selling听In Defense of Food, Gyorgy Scrinis鈥� concept of nutritionism refers to the reductive understanding of nutrients as the key indicators of healthy food.听 Scrinis argues this ideology has narrowed and in some cases distorted our appreciation of food quality, such that even highly processed foods may be perceived as healthful depending on their content of 鈥済ood鈥� or 鈥渂ad鈥� nutrients.

Dr. Gyorgy Scrinis, is senior lecturer in food and nutrition politics and policy at the University of Melbourne, Australia.听听 He is author of the influential work听Nutritionism听: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice听(Columbia University Press, 2015). Originally trained in philosophy, Scrinis is a leading voice in the interdisciplinary field of Food Studies, and the subfield of Critical Nutrition Studies in particular.

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Big Food and Global Suspicions: Applying Anthropology to Counter Mistrust

Dr. Chelsie Yount-Andr茅

鈥淓ach time we eat and drink, we vote for the world we want.鈥� This message, resonant with the discourses of ecological activists and scholars of food politics, was delivered by the CEO of a major yogurt company at the 2017 Consumer Goods Forum. Presenting his corporation鈥檚 purported desire to enact an 鈥淎limentation Revolution,鈥� the head of the French multinational suggested that ethics could deliver the company from the economic decline that has plagued major food companies for the past five years. As consumers increasingly embrace the goal of 鈥渆ating local鈥� and mistrust of large corporations has escalated worldwide, multinationals increasingly find their global reach to be a liability. This paper explores how, after years of global expansion founded on universalist projects, food companies are now scrambling to adapt to local contexts in order to respond to consumer critique. Specifically, it examines corporate attempts to harness the insights of the anthropology of food, via 鈥淔oodStyles鈥� studies: qualitative research projects the multinational carries out in partnership with local ethnographers and a French research center. Tracing interactions between the company鈥檚 Paris-based 鈥淔ood Cultures Group,鈥� employees at its branch in Johannesburg, and ethnographic researchers, it examines how the social meanings of food voiced by South African research participants were translated into business vernacular, to inspire innovations and investments. It then asks how these partnerships shape the research produced, to consider the future of research on food in the social sciences as public research funding dwindles and ethnography becomes an increasingly common corporate tool.

Chelsie Yount-Andr茅 is a postdoctoral fellow in the anthropology of food at Montpellier SupAgro/CIRAD research center. Her work focuses on processes of value creation through food, at the intersection of ethics and economics. She earned a joint Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University (Evanston) and the听脡cole des Hautes 脡tudes en Sciences Sociales听 (Paris) in 2017. She recently edited a special section on transnational families in global capitalism for the journal听Africa听and her work has been published in听Food and Foodways, the听Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and听The Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, and the听Revue des Sciences Sociales.