Students

ANTH203 – Food Across Cultures

2015 – S1 Day

General Information

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Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit Convenor
Eve Vincent
Contact via eve.vincent@mq.edu.au
W6A, 611
Tuesday 10am-11am or by appointment
Tutor
Lindy McDougall
Contact via lindy.mcdougall@mq.edu.au
Tutor
Angeles Montalvo
Contact via angeles.montalvo@students.mq.edu.au
Payel Ray
Credit points Credit points
3
Prerequisites Prerequisites
ANTH150 or 12cp or admission to GDipArts
Corequisites Corequisites
Co-badged status Co-badged status
Unit description Unit description
We all eat. But what, when, how, how much and with whom we eat is bound up with questions of cultural difference, gender and power. The study of food and eating has long held a particular fascination for anthropologists—from subsistence strategies to nutritional intake, from food taboos to the social rules that structure how people eat together. This unit introduces students to the idea that the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings. We will focus first on some classic anthropological work on eating as a social practice. Then we move to the concerns of contemporary anthropology, examining industrialised globalised food production, consumption practices and identity. Throughout this course we are concerned with everyday eating practices, exploring the extraordinary variety of food likes and dislikes in a range of ethnographic contexts. Not only will we talk about food, we will also come together to share food.

Important Academic Dates

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Come together to share food in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Enhance their communication and interpersonal skills through oral discussion and written work that focuses on articulating knowledge and information in a clear and concise fashion;
  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Assessment Tasks

Name Weighting Due
Tutorial Participation 10% Weekly
Critical Analysis of Readings 20% Friday March 20
Eating Experience Research 50% Weeks 10 and 11, in-class
Blog Analysis 20% Friday June 12

Tutorial Participation

Due: Weekly
Weighting: 10%

Each week, you should prepare for the tutorial discussion by completing the required readings. You should arrive at class willing to engage in respectful discussion of the authors’ key points and arguments. It is especially useful to bring with you any doubts or confusion about the readings - the tutorial is your time to clarify the readings as well as the lecture content. You are expected both to make informed contributions to class discussions, and to listen to others' contributions. Please notify your tutor if you are going to be absent from a tutorial. You are expected to attend at least 80 per cent of tutorials over the course of the semester.  


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Come together to share food in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Enhance their communication and interpersonal skills through oral discussion and written work that focuses on articulating knowledge and information in a clear and concise fashion;
  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Critical Analysis of Readings

Due: Friday March 20
Weighting: 20%

Your are required to select two readings from the first three weeks of this course. You may select from either the required or extended readings, but you should not select two readings from the same week. Provide a 500 word summary of each of the readings. We are looking for a critical engagement with the readings - after outlining the content of the reading, you are required to identify the central argument that the author is making. 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Eating Experience Research

Due: Weeks 10 and 11, in-class
Weighting: 50%

This social research project will be undertaken as a group assignment (3-4 students). Groups will be organised in your Week 5 tutorial. Your group will choose a particular eating situation, whether it is a meal on campus, dinner at home with family, a holiday meal, eating at the local cafeteria, or dining in a cafe or restaurant. You will then produce a description and an analysis of this particular eating situation. Class discussions and lectures will direct your attention to considering issues such as: the physical layout of the chosen space; the social dynamics of the place: who sits where, who serves whom, and what and how they eat; the role of gender and/or class in this eating experience.  

The task is to closely observe an eating experience, and  to provide some analysis of your observations based on the course material. Creativity in style and media of presentation is encouraged for the in-class presentations. On the date of your presentation, each student will also submit a written report of not more than 2,000 words on their project (detailed instructions on the report will be provided). The in-class presentation will be marked out of 20. Each group will have up to 10 minutes for their presentation. Every member of the group will receive the same mark as long as they have equally participated in the process of conducting the research and presenting your findings. The written report will be marked out of 30: this is an individual assignment. 

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Enhance their communication and interpersonal skills through oral discussion and written work that focuses on articulating knowledge and information in a clear and concise fashion;
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Blog Analysis

Due: Friday June 12
Weighting: 20%

You are required to analyse a food-related blog. We will spend time in tutorials in Week 12 discussing the range of blogs suitable for analysis. These blogs might deal, for example, with cooking, recipes, agriculture, bodies, or contemporary political movements related to food. You should spend some time describing the content of the blog before turning to an anthropological analysis of its content,  drawing on the themes and theories of this course. Your written assignment should include at least three references to either course material, or relevant literature. 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Delivery and Resources

The required readings for this unit, as well as the further readings, are all available through your iLearn site. The following texts have been placed on library reserve:

  • Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, Food and Culture a Reader, 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 1997.
  • Marvin Harris, Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture.  Illinois: Waveland Press, 1986.
  • James Watson and Melissa Caldwell, eds. The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader. Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
  • Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. England: Penguin Books, 2007.
  • Carol Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast:  The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

This course entails both lectures and tutorials. It is expected that you attend both. Films shown during lectures are an important component of this unit. All lectures (not films) will be recorded on echo360 and made available on the iLearn site to assist with review of course material. This should not be considered a substitute for lecture attendance.

Lecture slides will also be available on the iLearn site. Slides will be made available before the Wednesday lecture. 

Unit Schedule

Week 1. Eating Together: Introduction to the Anthropology of Food

Wednesday February 25

Background readings:

  • Daniel Sack, Material History of American Religion Project, On deciphering a potluck: The social meaning of church socials (http://www.materialreligion.org/journal/potluck.html)
  • Clifford Geertz, The Slametan: Communal Feast as Core Ritual, In The Religion of Java, New York: The Free Press, 1960, 11-15.
  • Eugene Cooper, Chinese Table Manners: You Are How You Eat, 1986.
  • Anna Meigs, Food as a Cultural Construction, In Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader, Routledge: New York and London, 1997, 93-106. 

There are no tutorials this week, but you should read the course outline thoroughly and familiarise yourself with the course assignments. Select one of the background readings for this week to read over, and then make a start on the readings for next week. If you have any questions please bring them to next week’s tutorial.

**

Week 2. Taste and Taboo

Wednesday March 4

Required readings:

  • Mary Douglas, The Abominations of Leviticus, In Purity and Danger, England: Penguin Books, 1970, 54-72.
  • Dylan Clark, The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine, Ethnology, vol. 43, no. 1, 2004, 19-31.
  • Marvin Harris, The Abominable Pig, In Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985, 67-87.

Further reading:

  • Marshall Sahlins, Food Preference and Tabu in American Domestic Animals,  In Culture and Practical Reason, University of Chicago Press, 1976, 170-179.

The first assessment task will be discussed in Week 2 tutorials.

**

Week 3. The Man-Eating Myth and Mortuary Cannibalism in the Amazon

Wednesday March 11

Required readings:

  • Beth A. Conklin, Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom: Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society, American Ethnologist, vol. 22, no. 1, 1995, 75-101.
  • Shirley Lindenbaum, Cannibalism, Kuru and Anthropology, Folia Neuropathol, vol. 47, no. 2, 2009, 138-144 .   

Film: Kuru: The science and the sorcery (2009) Rob Bygott

Further reading:

  • William Arens, excerpt from The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, 10-40.
  • Don Gardner, Anthropophagy, Myth and the Subtle Ways of Ethnocentrism, in Laurence Goldman (ed), The Anthropology of Cannibalism, Westport, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, 27-49.

**

Week 4. Hunting, Gathering and Food Collecting in Pre-colonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Australia

Wednesday March 18

Required reading:

  • Elizabeth Povinelli, 'Today We Struggle': Contemporary Hunting, Fishing, and Collecting and the Market, In Labor’s Lot: The Power, History, and Culture of Aboriginal Action. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994, 168-202.

  • Excerpts from Marcina Coleman Richards and Sue Coleman Haseldine, Nguly Gu Yadoo Mai (Our Good Food), 2012.

Further reading:

  • Michael Symons, excerpts from One Continuous Picnic, Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1982, 15-23; 254-262.
  • L. Davey, M. Macpherson, F.W. Clements, The Hungry Years: 1788-1792. In Beverley Wood (ed) Tucker in Australia, Melbourne: Hill of Content, 1977, 24-46.

**

Week 5. The Sweet Stuff: The History and Meaning of Sugar

Wednesday March 25

Required Reading

  • Sidney Mintz, Introduction and Chapter Four, In Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History, New York. Penguin, 1988.
  • Alison James, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Delicious: the Role of Confectionery in British Society’, Sociological Review, vol. 38, 1990, 666-688.  

Further reading:

  • Helen Leach and Raelene Inglis, The Archaeology of Christmas Cakes, Food and Foodways, vol. 11, no. 2, 2003, 141-166.

Students will form groups for the Eating Experience Research assessment task in Week 5 tutorials.

Week 6. The Industrialised Food System

Wednesday April 1

Required reading:

  • Michael Pollan, Introduction, In The Omnivore’s Dilemma. England: Penguin Books, 2007, 1-11.
  • Donald Stull and Michael Broadway, Chicken Little, Chicken Big: The Poultry Industry, In Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA, 2013, 42-61. 

Film: Food Inc. (2008) Robert Kenner

Further reading:

  • Alison Leitch, The Social Life of Lardo: Slow Food in fast times, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 1, no. 1, 2000, 103-118.

**

April 6-17: mid-semester recess, no lectures or tutorials

**

Week 7. Coffee, Class and Globalisation

Wednesday March 22

Required reading:

  • William Roseberry, The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States, in J. L. Watson and M. L. Caldwell (eds) The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating, USA, UK, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, 122-143.
  • Pierre Bourdieu, excerpts from The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles, In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984, 183-186; 193-200.

Extended reading: 

  • Yunxiang Yan, McDonald’s in Beijing: The Localization of Americana, in J. L Watson (ed) Golden Arches East, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, 39-76.

Film:  Black Gold: Wake up and smell the coffee (2007) Marc and Nick Francis.

**

Week 8. Food and Gender  

Wednesday April 29

Required reading:

  • Anne Allison, Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus, In Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader, Routledge: New York and London, 1997, 296-314.
  • Carole Counihan, 'We've Got to Provide for the Family': Women, Food, and Work, In A Tortilla is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009, 91-113.

Further reading:

  • Carole Counihan, 'It's a Feeling Thing': Cooking and Women's Agency, In A Tortilla is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009, 114-136.

**

Week 9. ‘Dancing in the Monsoon.’ Scarcity, Abundance and Belonging: Eating Lime Pickle in a Rajasthani Household

Wednesday May 9

Guest lecturer: Dr Kim Paul        

Required reading

  • Arjun Appadurai, How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 30, no. 1, 1988, 3-24.
  • Amy Reddinger, Eating ‘Local’: The Politics of Post-Statehood Hawaiian Cookbooks, Nordic Journal of English Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 2010, 67-87.

Further reading:

  • Marte, Lidia, Foodmaps: Tracing Boundaries of ‘Home’ Through Food Relations, Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, vol. 15, nos. 3-4, 2007, 261-289.

**

Week 10. The Global Food Regime and Issues of Food Security, Food Sovereignty and Famers' Rights: The Case of Nepal

Wednesday May 13

Guest Lecturer: Sascha Fuller

Required reading:

  • Craig Borowiak, Farmers' Rights: Intellectual Property Regimes and the Struggle over Seeds. Politics & Society, vol. 32, no. 4, 2004, 511-543

  • Raj Patel, Food Sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 36, no. 3, 2009, 663-706 (read pages 663-673; 682-689). 

Further reading:

  • Karine Preschard, Farmers' Rights and Food Sovereignty: Critical Insights from India, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 41, no. 6, 2014, 1085-1108.
  • Marc Edelman et al, Introduction: Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 41, no. 6, 2014, 911-931

Presentations in class this week!

**

Week 11. Eating the Other? Food and Multiculturalism

Wednesday May 20

Required reading:

  • Jean Duruz, Eating at the Borders: Culinary Journeys, In Amanda Wise and Selvaraj Velayutham (eds), Everyday Multiculturalism, Basingtstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 105-121.

Further reading:

  • Ghassan Hage, At Home in the Entrails of the West: Multiculturalism, Ethnic Food and Migrant Home-Building, In H. Grace, G. Hage, L. Johnson, J. Langsworth and M. Symonds (eds), Home/world: Space, Community and Marginality in Sydney’s West, Pluto Press: Annandale, 1997, 99-153.
  • James, Roberta, The reliable beauty of aroma: staples of food and cultural production among Italian-Australians, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, 23-39.
  • Mandy Thomas, Transitions in Taste in Vietnam and the Diaspora, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, 54-67.

Presentations in class this week!

Week 12. Bodies at the Limit: From Anorexia to the Fat Acceptance Movement

Wednesday May 27

Required reading:

  • Joan Jacobs Brumberg, excerpts from Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. New York: Vintage Books, 2000, 124-138; 229-254; 255-267.
  • Samantha Murray, The 'Normal' and the 'Pathological': 'Obesity' and the Dis-eased 'Fat' Body.In The Fat Female Body. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 44-68. 

Further reading:

  • Susan Bordo, Anorexia Nervosa: Pyschopathology as the Crystallization of Culture, In Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, . 
  • Carol Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast:  The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. (This book has been placed on reserve.)

The final assessment task will be discussed in Week 12 tutorials.

**

Week 13:  The Communal Feast: Potluck and Commensality in W6A, 107

There are no tutorials or lectures this week. Instead we will meet in W6A, 107 at 12pm: bring food to share, and a story about that food. 

 

Policies and Procedures

Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:

Academic Honesty Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html

Assessment Policy  http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html

Grading Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grading/policy.html

Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html

Grievance Management Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grievance_management/policy.html

Disruption to Studies Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html The Disruption to Studies Policy is effective from March 3 2014 and replaces the Special Consideration Policy.

In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central.

Student Code of Conduct

Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/student_conduct/

Results

Results shown in iLearn, or released directly by your Unit Convenor, are not confirmed as they are subject to final approval by the University. Once approved, final results will be sent to your student email address and will be made available in eStudent. For more information visit ask.mq.edu.au.

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Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.

Student Services and Support

Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Service who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies.

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Graduate Capabilities

Creative and Innovative

Our graduates will also be capable of creative thinking and of creating knowledge. They will be imaginative and open to experience and capable of innovation at work and in the community. We want them to be engaged in applying their critical, creative thinking.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Come together to share food in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Assessment tasks

  • Tutorial Participation
  • Eating Experience Research

Capable of Professional and Personal Judgement and Initiative

We want our graduates to have emotional intelligence and sound interpersonal skills and to demonstrate discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgement. They will exercise initiative as needed. They will be capable of risk assessment, and be able to handle ambiguity and complexity, enabling them to be adaptable in diverse and changing environments.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Assessment tasks

  • Tutorial Participation
  • Eating Experience Research

Commitment to Continuous Learning

Our graduates will have enquiring minds and a literate curiosity which will lead them to pursue knowledge for its own sake. They will continue to pursue learning in their careers and as they participate in the world. They will be capable of reflecting on their experiences and relationships with others and the environment, learning from them, and growing - personally, professionally and socially.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Come together to share food in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Assessment task

  • Blog Analysis

Discipline Specific Knowledge and Skills

Our graduates will take with them the intellectual development, depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content in their chosen fields to make them competent and confident in their subject or profession. They will be able to demonstrate, where relevant, professional technical competence and meet professional standards. They will be able to articulate the structure of knowledge of their discipline, be able to adapt discipline-specific knowledge to novel situations, and be able to contribute from their discipline to inter-disciplinary solutions to problems.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Come together to share food in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;

Assessment tasks

  • Critical Analysis of Readings
  • Eating Experience Research

Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking

We want our graduates to be capable of reasoning, questioning and analysing, and to integrate and synthesise learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments; to be able to critique constraints, assumptions and limitations; to be able to think independently and systemically in relation to scholarly activity, in the workplace, and in the world. We want them to have a level of scientific and information technology literacy.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Understand how the everyday activities of cooking and eating are packed with economic, medical, political and cultural meanings;
  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;
  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Assessment tasks

  • Critical Analysis of Readings
  • Eating Experience Research
  • Blog Analysis

Problem Solving and Research Capability

Our graduates should be capable of researching; of analysing, and interpreting and assessing data and information in various forms; of drawing connections across fields of knowledge; and they should be able to relate their knowledge to complex situations at work or in the world, in order to diagnose and solve problems. We want them to have the confidence to take the initiative in doing so, within an awareness of their own limitations.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcome

  • Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Assessment tasks

  • Critical Analysis of Readings
  • Eating Experience Research

Effective Communication

We want to develop in our students the ability to communicate and convey their views in forms effective with different audiences. We want our graduates to take with them the capability to read, listen, question, gather and evaluate information resources in a variety of formats, assess, write clearly, speak effectively, and to use visual communication and communication technologies as appropriate.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Enhance their communication and interpersonal skills through oral discussion and written work that focuses on articulating knowledge and information in a clear and concise fashion;
  • Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Assessment tasks

  • Tutorial Participation
  • Eating Experience Research

Engaged and Ethical Local and Global citizens

As local citizens our graduates will be aware of indigenous perspectives and of the nation's historical context. They will be engaged with the challenges of contemporary society and with knowledge and ideas. We want our graduates to have respect for diversity, to be open-minded, sensitive to others and inclusive, and to be open to other cultures and perspectives: they should have a level of cultural literacy. Our graduates should be aware of disadvantage and social justice, and be willing to participate to help create a wiser and better society.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;

Assessment task

  • Blog Analysis

Socially and Environmentally Active and Responsible

We want our graduates to be aware of and have respect for self and others; to be able to work with others as a leader and a team player; to have a sense of connectedness with others and country; and to have a sense of mutual obligation. Our graduates should be informed and active participants in moving society towards sustainability.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Gain insight into the ways that food is linked up with many of the concerns of contemporary social anthropology, including globalisation, consumption practices, identity, and practices of everyday life;
  • Consider the impact of globalisation and migration on food ways, resistance to corporate multinational food chains and celebrations of so-called ‘authentic’ tastes;
  • Apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues;

Assessment task

  • Blog Analysis