The second installment of the anthropologies issue on food comes from Zofia Boni, a food anthropologist. Boni’s PhD (SOAS) focused on food and children and the negotiations regarding feeding and eating in Warsaw. Currently, she is a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. Her new research project focuses on the social dynamics of childhood obesity in Poland. –R.A.

Food is an intrinsic element of all anthropological research. Sharing food can be an ice breaker; it can provide a context or an opportunity for the conversations with your interlocutors, it provides insights into their lives and often means that “you are in!” or at least you are getting closer.

In the case of anthropology of food, however, food becomes particularly important as it is placed at the heart of the research. What happens when food is not only a research tool which facilitates interactions, but also becomes the object of the research? How can we actually study something so ephemeral? And what happens when we eat it and therefore embody the object of our research? What sort of implications does it have for the researchers and the researched? What sort of tensions or connections does it create? Though anthropologists reflect on those issues, the centrality of food and its importance for many anthropological encounters, to a large extent, stays implicit. This essay aims to inspire the discussion about the role and place of food in anthropological research on food. Continue reading →