Working Group on Food Research

The WG announces the Call for Papers for its 24th International Ethnological Food Research Conference in Budapest, Hungary, 18-20 September 2024. The conference theme is ‘Living Eating Habits, Revitalized Foodways and the Concepts of Tradition and Food Heritage’.

Call for Papers: SIEF 24th International Ethnological Food Research Conference, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest, Hungary, September 18–20, 2024.

Conference Theme: Living Eating Habits, Revitalized Foodways and the Concepts of Tradition and Food Heritage

Food as Heritage

In their ‘Introduction: Food and Foodways as Cultural Heritage’ in Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage (2014, 2016), Michael A. Di Giovine and Ronda L. Brulotte remark in terms of food heritage, that food … “binds people together, not only through space but time as well, as individuals collectively remember past experiences with certain meals and imagine their ancestors having similar experiences. When this occurs, food is transformed into heritage … tangible and intangible goods that a society inherits from the past (héritage), preserves in the present, and passes on to the future… These are mediators, linking members of society together through space and time, serving as referential touchstones for a group’s self-identification … and representing the group to outsiders… Already affective in nature, food therefore takes on even greater emotional weight when designated as “heritage.” This heritage can be small in scale, demarcating a particular group or community; it can likewise be large in scale, attempting to solidify nationalistic ideologies or multicultural ideals that purport to unify, homogenize, or celebrate cultural diversity. In all of these cases, it is clear that heritage imparts particular value claims on people, their histories, social structures, and traditions. It is also able to contain and embody the memories of people and places, across space and time…” (Brulotte, Ronda L., Di Giovine, Michael A., [eds.], Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2016, 1-2; Ashgate, 2014).

Conference Submissions

Against this discursive background of food heritage implications, the conference focuses on meals and on the ways in which food and foodways are used to create ‘identity claims’ of cultural heritage at local, regional, national and international levels. Submission for the conference may include, but are not limited to the following topics. 

Important aspects/questions (examined, to a certain extent with particular regional emphasis in Edible Identities) are: 

• the use of food to mark insiders and outsiders within ethnic groups 

• how the meanings of the same food can change within a particular society; 

• the “invention” of traditions for the purposes of the economic and social revitalization of communities; 

• the designating, classifying, and the valorization of food and foodways as cultural heritage in the process of the heritagization and heritage-making and its role in local development strategies and heritage tourism;

• how food traditions and food heritages were used as sources of knowledge for survival during recent and past challenges and emergencies, such as war threats, Covid-19 lockdown, and so on. (For example, mothers in many parts of Europe and the USA renewed home bread-baking habits during Covid-19 times.)

• how to define food heritage and traditions;

• how food is used (or neglected) in institutions and organizations working with other forms of cultural heritage (e.g, museums, arts, architecture);

• gender and food heritage

• the role of experts, ethnologists and anthropologists in recognizing, protecting and using food heritage 

• what does ethnic (food), local (food) and traditional (food) mean in a comparative perspective? 

• who is the owner of heritage?

• what are the risks and ethical aspects and implications of marketization?

Guidelines for Paper Proposals

The conference programme consists of plenary keynote lectures, and thematic sessions. If you are interested in presenting a paper at the conference, please submit an abstract before January 31, 2024. The conference language is English. Presenters of accepted papers are expected to speak for 20 minutes and this will be followed by a discussion. 

Application should include:

• title of paper

• abstract (max. 500 words)

• biographical information (short CV max. 5 lines)

• contact information (email, telephone and postal address)

Applications should be sent by the deadline of January 31, 2024. Please submit your abstract by email to: bati.aniko@gmail.com.

Notifications of acceptance of conference submissions

Authors will be notified regarding the acceptance of their submission by March 1, 2024.

Registration fee and payment

Information on fee and registration procedures and accommodation during the conference will follow.

Conference book: An edited book of conference papers is expected to be published.

Venue: Hungary, Budapest, Museum of Ethnography.

Papers and presentation deadline: September 15, 2024.

Organization

- Kemecsi Lajos, Director General, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest

- Balogh Balázs, Director General, Research Centre for the Humanities, Director of the Institute of Ethnology

- Kisbán Eszter Professor Emerita, University of Pécs

- Patricia Lysaght, SIEF Food Research Group 

- Håkan Jönsson, SIEF Food Research Group

- Báti Anikó, Senior Research Fellow, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Ethnology, as a contact person – bati.aniko@gmail.com