Food+Ethnography+Design

In collaboration with Mateusz Halawa, a researcher in the Institute of Philosophy of the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw, I have been developing a research and practice approach that activates food studies research, ethnographic insights, and design methodologies to explore cultural and social issues and contexts, introduce innovation and behavioral changes, and provide support to companies and business.

Our approach is based on:

  • An understanding of culture that bridges food heritage and traditions in the present with the future through trends, expectations, aspirations. Social sciences increasingly look at the future and scenarios of possible futures, how people imagine and experience them. Food heritage and traditions are not found, they are made: they are practices in the present that build on the past within projects that envision and design the future.
  • A focus on the interconnections between human actors, material objects, spaces, and infrastructures: food design as an approach linking environments, affects and sensoria, culinary practices, media, and services systems, including designing the invisible
  • A systemic approach: Whatever object, space, or experience a design project may focus on, we must be able to grasp the complexity of the food system and production networks, beyond the traditional linear supply chain approach. This is the case at all scales, from the local to the regional and the national: how do specific products, traditions, or food-related business relate to their context? What is their impact on it? How do different stakeholders situate themselves in it?
  • Ethnography with dual focus—cultural intermediaries, experts, and designers on the one hand, and households on the other. This approach provides us with fine-grained understanding of food as embodied social practice that connects large social structures to small scale decisions and, conversely, reveals how microfoundations of food systems matter globally. Ethnography allows for an in-depth exploration of stakeholders’ conflicting priorities, needs, and values, which shape the negotiations taking place around food and the food system.
  • A global outlook, based on our international backgrounds and experiences, which at the same time pays attention to local realities and contexts.
  • A teamwork attitude that has led to collaborations with universities, public institutions, and private businesses.
  • An appreciation for skill sharing and idea elaboration through innovative educational formats in transdisciplinary networks of practitioners and thinkers; such expertise grows out of our research work as scholars and our experiences as professors and academic administrators.

 

Click on the following links to explore the research projects:

Workshops

Curatorial Work