MA Anthropology of Food and Intensive Language

Overview

Our MA programme in the Anthropology of Food offers you the opportunity to explore historically and culturally variable foodways, from foraging to industrial agriculture, from Europe and North America to Africa, Asia and South America.

You will study the passage of food from plant to palate, and examine who benefits, and who suffers, from contemporary modes of food production, exchange, preparation, and consumption. You will also explore the role of food in human migrations and investigate the formation of regional and national cuisines. As well as examine food fears and food safety and concerns over ‘nutrition transition’.

Debates over the impact of agricultural biotechnology on agrarian livelihoods and knowledge systems, as well as on the natural environment, are assessed. Movements toward organic agriculture, veganism and vegetarianism, fair trade, and slow food are also analysed.

An anthropological approach to the study of food draws upon and challenges the perspectives of other disciplines, whether agronomy or nutritional science, economics or law, history or literature.

This programme has a first-rate graduate employability record, with graduates moving on to find employment in food-related government ministries, international organisations, development agencies, or non-governmental associations.

Teaching & Learning

Course teachers Johan Pottier, Harry G. West, and Jakob Klein were awarded the 2009 Excellence in Instruction Award by the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society. West was named joint runner-up for the SOAS Director’s Teaching Prize in 2011-2012. The SOAS MA in the Anthropology of Food was named a Finalist in the Best Food Initiative category in the BBC Food & Farming Awards in 2015.

Modules

In the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, most postgraduate modules have a one or two-hour lecture and a one hour seminar every week. Lectures and seminars are often taken by different teachers to provide a variety of angles on the subject. The majority of the student’s time will be through their own independent study. Students become more active in class through their reading and essay-writing and should greatly enhance their participation in discussion groups.

The Dissertation

These are taken by final-year students only, its aim is to provide an opportunity for students to conduct original historical research on their own initiative, to engage in in-depth analysis of particular subjects and to use a range of primary historical sources. It is assessed by a single 10,000-word dissertation (including notes but excluding bibliography).

Employment

Skills gained include:

• the development of analytical and theoretical skills based on a detailed understanding of the social science literature on migration and diaspora
• ability to approach theories and debates from a critical and reflexive basis
• ability to develop their presentation skills and their ability to articulate arguments coherently in order to promote class discussion and critical engagement with ideas and practices
• learn photographic and film making techniques through the Media unit
• practice research techniques in a variety of specialised research libraries and institutes
• acquire/develop skills in a language to Effective Operational Proficiency level (in the two-year intensive language pathway)
• be able to apply for funding to do a PhD
• be prepared to enter a Social Science PhD programme