Cultural Complexities
Everyday Taste : Food Aesthetics and Aesthetic Food View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Randall Van Schepen
Our contemporary cultural situation invites a comparison of two recently intersecting phenomena, the increasingly high regard of aestheticized food production and the increasingly everyday quality of contemporary art practice that employs food as a medium. Traditionally, “taste” as a sensory ability was excluded from “taste” as an indication of cultural refinement. This distinction was rooted in a historical hierarchy of the senses. However, in the last two decades, and for the first time in history, the cultural products of high gastronomy (Adriá, Achatz, Blumenthal…), have been displayed in institutions usually dedicated to the “fine arts.” At the very same historical moment, contemporary artists (Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mary Ellen Carroll, Lee Mingwei…). The present essay briefly surveys the background of the tension between “taste” and “taste” by conflating John Dewey’s aesthetic theory, which included the consumption of food as aesthetic, with Clement Greenberg’s formalism, which channeled aesthetic experience into a narrowly defined opticality. Instead of either of these positions, the paper argues that Mary Rawlinson’s recent theory of the “everyday” (2017) repositions this philosophical stalemate along more productive lines of thinking. It employs her ideas, first applied as a phenomenology of food production and consumption to contemporary art that employs food activities, finding a creative common ground between seemingly different fields of cultural production.
Unlucky or Lazy? : How the COVID-19 Pandemic Influenced Perceptions of Food Stamp Recipients View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amy Sentementes
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated food insecurity within the United States. Feeding America, a nonprofit, estimates that 40% of individuals who sought food assistance at the onset of the pandemic were doing so for the first time (White, 2020). Prior to the pandemic, perceptions of deservingness mediated opinions on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as food stamps. Essentially, individuals assign ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ labels based on whether that recipient is unlucky or lazy, respectively (Hansen, 2019; Peterson, 2012). This research first evaluates if the pandemic has changed general perceptions of deservingness of food stamp recipients, as citizens may be more likely to categorize recipients as unlucky due to the public health crisis. If the pandemic has motivated people to label a majority of recipients as unlucky rather than lazy, then I seek to evaluate whether or not a COVID-19 frame of food stamps has the potential to create a long-term shift in public opinion on this federal food assistance program. [Hansen, Kristina Jessen. 2019. “Who Cares If They Need Help? The Deservingness Heuristic, Humanitarianism, and Welfare Opinions.” Political Psychology, 40(2): 413-430. Peterson, Michael Bang. 2012. “Social Welfare as Small-Scale Help: Evolutionary Psychology and the Deservingness Heuristic.” American Journal of Political Science, 56(10): 1-16. White, Martha C. 2020. “Millions of Americans Going Hungry As Pandemic Erodes Incomes and Destroys Communities.” NBC News, July. Web.]
The Complexities of Whaling for Food in the Faroe Islands: Pollution, Public Health, and the Persistence of Traditional Food Systems
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Russell Fielding
This paper lays out the framework for a new study on the intersections among public health, cultural identity, and international politics as experienced in small-scale fishing nations. Using the whaling society of the Faroe Islands as an extreme case indicator community, we investigate whether limits on global emission releases set by treaties such as the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants are properly gauged to protect not only human health but cultural wellbeing, economic autonomy, and political sovereignty too. We argue that lessons learned from the indicator community chosen for analysis can inform the development of new theories that apply to small-scale fishing communities worldwide.
Exploratory Use of Land Evaluation and Site Assessment to Identify Ideal Locations for (Sub)Urban Agriculture in Chesterfield County, Virginia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session John Jones
Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) is a geospatial technique used to determine ideal locations for land uses; and is traditionally used in rural agricultural planning. This exploratory research adapts that the LESA technique to identify ideal locations for urban and suburban agriculture in Chesterfield County, Virginia; the urbanizing southern edge of the Richmond metropolitan area. Three major analysis themes shape the findings: agricultural and natural resources; equity and accessibility; and heat island mitigation. This technique has the potential to be adapted and localized by any government or land trust as a means to identify high quality agricultural land for development, as well as conservation/preservation, into agricultural use.
