We continue to be pleased to participate in this on-going, collective food blog. Though this third report has been labeled “afters,” thus far our experience with the blog has had more of a sense of collective preparation and individual nibbling – with the meal yet to come… The task, now, is preparing that meal.
In terms of the first question, that of the mechanics of “collaborative writing,” our experience in collaborative efforts comes more from the kitchen than from the computer. It seems there are two possibilities as we proceed collectively. The first is a potluck style effort – a mismatched and disheveled array of interesting dishes, chaotically arranged, but always with something for everyone. (In mechanical terms this might mean passing around parts of the paper more vigorously among individuals targeted for those sections.) The second is a more like a feast – a polished and graceful event, led by a dedicated head chef (seems we have one of these!) and powered by lots of enthusiastic sous chefs (got these too). (In mechanical terms this seems more hierarchical, something to the effect of the head chef asking: could person A write this section on ABC, person B integrate XYZ here, and could person C chop the carrots?) Both the potluck and the feast have their plusses and minuses – individuality versus unity, modesty versus ostentation, indigestion versus distention. Either way, I am sure there will be lots of full bellies in the end.
In terms of the second question, that of where we think food-based research in geography is (or should be) “heading,” we have to say that heading doesn’t feel like the right word. Expanding, seeping, oozing, running, and even exploding seem more appropriate. That is to say, this blog is a testament to the fact that food geographies aren’t headed in one particular direction but rather rapidly and excitingly reaching many new literal and metaphorical places. Cultural, political, rural, urban, feminist, health-based, animal, post-human, material…geographies of affect, emotion…the list could go on and on. Precisely because food can be followed, mixed, tasted, and digested in so many places and in so many ways it has quickly become a vastly expansive and important topic for geography and beyond. Food-based analysis can both help us to better understand current areas of geographic inquiry (e.g. in our own work, geographies of affect and the body) and can lead us as a discipline into ever-new (interdisciplinary) territory (e.g. psychology or biology). In this sense, the “afters” are just the beginning. As this meal travels beyond our collective stomachs and through our bodies’ many interconnected systems – digestive, circulatory, nervous, etc… - we look forward to ever-more potential for expanding our geographic understanding (and of course, our food-based metaphors)!
Thanks,
Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy
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3 comments:
Hi Allison and Jessica
Thanks for your posting. The metaphors work really well, and I'm liking those conclusions (opening things out really nicely, questioning the idea of a conclusion, a body of work, a direction, lovely...).
The writing suggestions did make me want to ask a couple of practical questions, though.
- just to be sure, are you volunteering to share in the 'donkey work' here!?
If so, then I wondered if it would make sense for me to do an initial rough 'coding' of what's been said in the blog, and then ask for volunteers to work on bits of it.
This rough coding and handover could work with both the potluck and the feast.
The trick in writing this paper will be to somehow preserve the differences in voices and perspectives and the dialogues, while also making things cohere.
Sorry I can't continue with the culinary metaphors, here [see below]...
- on a related note, since you write together, I was wondering how you go about that practically.
We need to draw on our own experiences of successful collaborative writing for this process to work.
I'm imagining that people in our team will have different ideas, experiences and abilities to devote time to this. It's possible that 4 or 5 of us could write this together, somehow.
Seems like we need ideas from everyone, and some kind of writing team to come together at this stage to work on them.
I really like the idea of writing this like a 'handover'. I could start off the review with some kind of recap and explanation of the blog/space idea. Then it could just fill up with other people, ideas, conversations, etc...
Again, no culinary metaphors come to mind! [incidentally, when I was working with Phil Crang and Mark Thorpe, we came across loads of 'foody' food researchers (i.e people who loved food and that's why they studied it). We weren't in that category and didn't have that imagination. Everything we ever made was and tasted brown... that's why I'm struggling to push the metaphors]
Thanks
Ian
from Lucius Hallett
Greetings everyone, and thanks to Ian for allowing us the opportunity to explore with all of you.
A number of conclusions have appeared to me – the presence of the ‘animal being consumed’ seems to be on the mind of many, as well as the ongoing fascination with the fetish. When things get sticky (death, blood, violence etc.), than they disappear behind production practices such that the public looses sight of them– the removal of offal from many supermarkets because it is deemed less hygienic, or, how skirt steaks or flank steaks are more expensive because they are the fajita cut as well as that favored by may Chinese restaurants, and the killing floor in slaughter houses appears to be along these same trains of thought. Try as we may, the fetish (and lifting the veil of ignorance behind them) keeps coming back, and back, and back – reflecting the tearing down and rebuilding of capitalism that Marx (and Harvey) suggested would happen. While capitalism or the fetish does not at present seem to be sowing the seeds of its own destruction, it does continue to present some ominous warnings as has been apparent throughout the blog.
Spaces of exchange becoming the spaces of knowledge as well, not just simply sharing in the place of food consumption but sharing in all of the knowledge (at least what is known, or imagined as the unknown) of that meal or the gathering of the ingredients for it. “After” knowledge’s (forgive the jargon) sometimes leads to the discoveries such as the one Heather Putnam points out where the fallout of cultural tourism can simply be that the farmer does not see any benefit – they only better understand that they are not benefiting. Fabulous!! What we eat dictates what others have to eat or grow to satisfy demands.
I wonder if the blog process has been similar to a dining experience for all involved. Some are full, others perhaps a little too full of wine, still a few who are hungry for more immediately but all will need to feed again on the morn, which is what is so wonderful about our chosen field. Ian commented on Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy, excusing himself from any more culinary references but if I may use a few: As a whole, a meal cooked for many needs a head cook, or an aboyer as those of us with culinary experience call them, someone who ensures that the whole is greater than the parts, someone who calls out to the sours chefs and line cooks on when to start, what to start and times it all to arrive as the finished dish that others (not those “other’s”, rather, simply those outside the kitchen), will eat. The collaborative aspect of this blog has shown all of the diverse ideas, comments, and research that all of us are doing and so demand some sort of captain. Of course, with any meal served to the public there is a new day, a tomorrow, where the markets are freshly opened with new product! That must be the final conclusion, you are never really done in food geographies, only momentarily sated which in turn leads to contemplation, satisfaction, and than on to lust!
I'm not a geographer, or a food anthropologist, (my work involves following non-food products) but I do have to admit to being a bit of a foody. So, to continue our food metaphors, being involved in this blog process has been rather like an invite to an unusual and fascinating banquet for me. It is not so much that all the dishes were strange and unfamiliar to me, but that their semi-familiar tastes had been given strange new textures. Things I expected to be smooth were crunchy. Others I had always experienced as rather chewy, slipped down like jelly. Many issues/concepts were ones I have been grappling with myself, but they seemed to feel different when digested in the context of this blog- all of which of course, is rather marvellous. (And as yet I'm not reaching for the indigestion tablets).
On a more practical note, I agree with Ian that a rough coding could work with both the 'potlatch' and the 'feast' mentioned by Jessica and Allison. In many ways, our ability to maintain coherence alongside a plurality of ideas and angles, comes back to our attempts to define thing-following and know why we are doing it. (And I think our Head Chef has developed a very good working definition based upon key ideas from Appadurai, Harvey and Marcus)With these mutual 'whys' in place, I think we can proceed in both unified and individual ways, without this neccessarily being problematic.
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