Intellectual Property Rights
Biopiracy
This encyclopedic resource concisely explains the charge of biopiracy, critiques of extractive practices, and international law and policy related to the term. It also provides suggestions for further reading.
Food Studies
Tamil Nadu
Environmentalist Food Localization and Ethnographic Accounts of Tamil Hindu Place-Based Identities
This paper presents Hindu philosophy as the foundation for an environmentalist ethics conducive to local food systems and the host of social, personal, and environmental benefits that local food advocates associate with those systems.
Presentations
Millet Madness
> Health in Heritage or Food to Leave in the Past? Reference Chera, Madeline. 2014. “Millet Madness: Health in Heritage or Food to Leave in the Past?” Paper presented in “Less Palatable, Still Valuable: Taste, Agrobiodiversity, and Culinary Heritage,” Executive Session, at the American Anthropological Association 113th Annual Meeting, Washington,
Food Studies
Valuing Variety: Agrobiodiversity Conservation
The course focused on the topic of agricultural biodiversity conservation, and so was related to my focus areas of food and the environment.
Presentations
Variety As the Spice of Life
> Considering Delight in Dietary Diversity As Potential Contributor to Health Reference Chera, Madeline. 2012. “Variety as the Spice of Life: Considering Delight in Dietary Diversity as Potential Contributor to Health." Paper presented in “Pleased to Eat You: Exploring the Scope of Pleasure in the Foodscape,” at American Anthropological
Publications
Ideologies of Fermented Foods
Abstract Anthropologists have long noted that identification of organic materials as edible is quite culturally contingent, and this variability applies all the more to fermented foods, which have been modified by the activities of micro-organisms. Fermented foods bear multiple meanings, even within the Euro-American context. One position stems from the
Local Food
FILM REVIEW | Eating Alaska
This film review discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the food systems documentary Eating Alaska as a pedagogical tool and an ethnographic work.
Food Studies
Ideologies of Fermented Foods
I presented at the Eighth Biennial Graduate Group Symposium at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in Nov. 2011. The Symposium was entitled Food for Thought, and was focused on food.
Local Food
Local Foods/Local Cookbooks
In this paper, I consider several examples of local food cookbooks, their implicit and explicit claims, and the degree to which they deliver on these claims.