The Industrialisation of Agriculture

Our class on the industrialisation of agriculture started with a simple game of word association. Professor Harry West asked us to think of terms that we associated with this idea. These were the results:

When we had completed the task, Harry made an interesting point. He highlighted that any term that evokes this many associations is complex by nature. For this reason we can’t rely on the term to say any one thing, because it says something about all of these things.

It is also clear that it means different things to different people.  As budding anthropologists we placed emphasis on the socio-cultural dimensions of agricultural industrialisation, as well as considering the environmental implications. The results would probably look quite different if we were a class of economics students at the LSE.

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What is food anthropology?

When I tell people I am studying the anthropology of food, I am usually met with a blank expression. Some people are game to ask what that means, a question I find difficult to answer even now, a year and a half into my course.

I generally start by saying “Well anthropology, very generally, is the study of human culture and society. Food anthropology is about that, but the focus is always food related.” This, it turns out, is not very helpful. Expressions have changed from blank to baffled. 

The main thing I find difficult to convey is the breadth of the topics covered. People often assume that the subject is largely historical and that it namely deals with the exotic. I'm not sure where the first idea comes from, but the second is hardly surprising. Anthropology is a discipline with its roots in Western colonialism, and for much of its development the focus was on ‘other’ cultures. 

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