Unit Guide

General Information

Unit convenor and teaching staff	Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit Convenor Eve Vincent eve.vincent@mq.edu.au Contact via via email W6A, 611 Wednesday 1pm-2pm or by appointment Tutor Lindy McDougall lindy.mcdougall@mq.edu.au Contact via via email Tutor Tomas Wilkoszewski tomas.wilkoszewski@mq.edu.au Contact via via email
Credit points	Credit points 3
Prerequisites	Prerequisites ANTH150 or (12cp at 100 level or above) 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 food classification, 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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;
Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
Come together to share food and recipes in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
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.

General Assessment Information

All assessment items must be attempted in order for a student to pass this unit. Late reports and late essays will be penalised at the rate of 5 per cent per day. There is no late submissions of quizzes permissible.

Assessment Tasks

Name	Weighting	Hurdle	Due
Tutorial Participation	10%	Yes	Weekly
Weekly Quizzes	20%	Yes	Weekly
Eating Experience Research	30%	Yes	Weeks 8 and 9, in-class.
Take Home Exam	40%	Yes	Friday June 16

Tutorial Participation

Due: Weekly
Weighting: 10%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)

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 food classification, 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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;
Come together to share food and recipes in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
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;

Weekly Quizzes

Due: Weekly
Weighting: 20%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)

Over the course of the semester you will be required to answer 10 short questions. One questions is released each week, it is based on the weekly readings. Your answer will be around 150 words in length. Each quiz will open at 9am on the Wednesday (as our lecture begins) and close at midnight on the following Sunday. Each quiz is worth 2 per cent of your overall grade in this unit. You will receive a grade out of ten for each quiz. Feedback on quiz answers will be provided at the beginning of each tutorial. Please make a time to consult with your tutor or lecturer if you want to discuss your weekly quiz results in more depth; we are more than happy to provide additional feedback on your answers.

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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;
Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

Eating Experience Research

Due: Weeks 8 and 9, in-class.
Weighting: 30%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)

This social research project will be undertaken as a group assignment (3-4 students). Groups will be organised in your Week 3 tutorial. Your group will choose a particular eating situation, whether it is dinner at home with a family, a celebratory meal, 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, ethnicised identities 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.

The in-class presentation will be worth 10 per cent of your overall mark in this unit. 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. Creativity in style and media of presentation is encouraged for the in-class presentations.

On Wednesday May 17, each student will also submit a written report of not more than 1,000 words on their project (detailed instructions on the report will be provided). The written report will be will be worth 20 per cent of your overall mark in this unit: this is an individual assignment. Late submission of reports will be penalised - 5 per cent of the report grade per day.

On successful completion you will be able to:

Understand how the everyday activities of food classification, 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;
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;

Take Home Exam

Due: Friday June 16
Weighting: 40%
This is a hurdle assessment task (see assessment policy for more information on hurdle assessment tasks)

You will write two short essays of 750 words each, excluding references. Essay questions will be uploaded on Monday June 5 at 9am. Take home exams are due by 11:59pm on Friday June 16. Late submission of your take home exam will be penalised - 5 per cent of the assignment grade per day.

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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;
Cement critical analysis and creative thinking skills through research assignments and papers.

Delivery and Resources

Weekly readings for this course are available through the library website. Search for 'ANTH203' under the 'unit readings' tab.

Lectures and tutorials are compulsory. Lectures are recorded, but listening online is no substitute for lecture attendance: I often show excerpts from films/documentaries/ads to illustrate key points, and these are not properly captured in the lecture recordings.

The following books are background readings for the course, and have been placed on Reserve:

Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader. Routledge: New York and London, 1997.
Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Marvin Harris, Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985.
David Inglis and Debra Gimlin (eds) The Globalization of Food. Oxford: Berg, 2009.
Marianne Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (eds), The Politics of Food. Oxford: Berg, 2004.
Michael Symons, One Continuous Picnic. Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1982.
James Watson and Melissa Caldwell (eds). The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

Food and Foodways is a journal dedicated to the history and culture of food in different societies.

Unit Schedule

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

Wednesday March 1

Eating is a profoundly social experience, cementing or marking social intimacies, hierarchies and roles. In this lecture we will talk about the idea of 'commensality', the practice of eating together. We will explore the kinds of relationships and boundaries between people created through various meals: a Javanese feast called a 'slametan'; an everyday Chinese lunch in a Hong Kong eatery; an anthropologist's attempt to share a festive Christmas meal in the Kalahari desert. At this introductory lecture, the structure of the unit, its key themes, and the assessment items will be explained.

Required readings:

Clifford Geertz, The Slametan: Communal Feast as Core Ritual, In The Religion of Java, New York: The Free Press, 1960, 11-15.
Richard Lee, Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.

Further reading:

Maurice Bloch, Commensality and Poisoning, Social Research, vol. 66, no. 1, 1999, 133-149.
Eugene Cooper, Chinese Table Manners: You Are How You Eat, 1986.

There are no tutorials this week. You should read the course outline thoroughly and familiarise yourself with the course assignments. If you have any questions please bring them to next week’s tutorial.

Week 2. Taste and Taboo

Wednesday March 8

Ever eaten spiders? Perhaps. Seaweed? No doubt. Raw meat? Guinea pig? Pigs trotters? Kangaroo?

Why do some cultures regard certain foodstuffs as disgusting, while others regard these same items as highly desirable delicacies or as everyday foods? How do we learn about these categories? What explains the different cultural categorisations of the same edible items? We will read two authors, Mary Douglas and Marvin Harris, who disagree with each other in their attempts to answer these questions, which are fundamental to the anthropology of food.

Required readings:

Mary Douglas, The Abominations of Leviticus, In Purity and Danger, England: Penguin Books, 1970, 54-72.
Marvin Harris, The Abominable Pig, In Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985, 67-87.
Marshall Sahlins, Food Preference and Tabu in American Domestic Animals, In Culture and Practical Reason, University of Chicago Press, 1976, 170-179.

Further reading:

Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Dogs, Whales and Kangaroos: Transnational Activism and Food Taboos. In Marianne Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (eds), The Politics of Food. Oxford: Berg, 2004, 179-197.

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

Wednesday March 15

Was anthropophagy -the consumption of human flesh- a sanctioned practice in certain societies, partaken of for specific cultural reasons? What might it mean to lovingly ingest part of the body of a deceased family member? Or is cannibalism a myth, generated so that one culture can differentiate itself from others it sees as inferior? What role does colonialism and contemporary expressions of racism have to play in all of this?

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. Gendered Symbols, Gendered Roles.

Wednesday March 22

Studying food inevitably involves studying gender relations. We will talk, first, about the symbolic associations that certain foods themselves have – foods and also drinks come to symbolise the qualities which a particular culture associates with masculinity, and the qualities a particular culture associates with femininity. These symbolic associations vary across cultures. Second, we will talk about gender and the allocation of certain roles surrounding food production, cooking, shopping and serving.

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.
Anna Meigs, Food Rules and the Traditional Sexual Ideology, In Food, Sex, and Pollution, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 31-44.

Further reading:

Jeffrey Sobal, Men, Meat, and Marriage: Models of Masculinity, Food and Foodways, 13:1-2, 135-158.
Alex McIntosh and Mary Zey, ‘Women as Gate Keepers’, In Food and Gender: Identity and Power’, edited bv Carole Counihan. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, 125-144.

Week 5. Entangled commodities: sugar and coffee

Wednesday March 29

How did sugar come to be so ubiquitous, and why do we continue to eat it even while knowing it is bad for us? This week we will discuss the way a single commodity such as sugar or coffee might be used to reveal complex entanglements. The history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the use of indentured South Sea islander labour in the Queensland sugar fields; the spread of sugar into a nutritionally deficient English working diet; the use of sweetness to mark the new rhythms of industrial capitalism and the boundary between work and rest; the current status of sugar in Western diets are all intertwined in our exploration of the sweet stuff. In the second half of the lecture we will turn our attention to the rise of cafe culture and the way food preferences express and reflect social class; the nature of the relationship between rural coffee growers and urban consumers; globalisation, commodity chains and debates about economic regulation of global markets.

Required Reading

Sidney Mintz, excerpts from Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History, New York. Penguin, 1988.
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; 193-20.

Extended reading:

Alison James, The Good, the Bad and the Delicious: the Role of Confectionery in British Society, Sociological Review, vol. 38, 1990, 666-688.
Paige West, Making the Market: Specialty Coffee, Generational Pitches, and Papua New Guinea. Antipode, 2010, Vol.42, no. 3, 690-718.
James Carrier, Protecting the Environment the Natural Way: Ethical Consumption and Commodity Fetishism, Antipode, 2010, vol. 42, no. 3, 672–689.
Film: Black Gold: Wake up and smell the coffee (2007) Marc and Nick Francis.

Week 6. High Food, Low Food, Fast Food, Slow Food

Wednesday April 5

This week will move forward in time from the early emergence of industrial capitalism to the rise of the industrialised global food system in the post WW2 period. We will cover the centrality of corn in the American food chain, the rise of fast food, and industrialised methods of animal slaughter. We will also talk about the labour practices associated with industrialised food production, focussing on Australia's Seasonal Workers Program. In the second half of the lecture, we shift our attention to various food movements that have emerged as a response to this system. What is the relationship between pleasure, eating and time, according to the Slow Food movement? And why does Julie Guthman, a critic of both the industrialised food system and the organic movement, describe the alternative food movement as 'unbearably white'?

Required reading:

Timothy Pachirat, excerpts from Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 140-161
Michael Pollan, The Meal, In The Omnivore’s Dilemma. England: Penguin Books, 2007,109-119.
Julie Guthman, Can't Stomach It: How Michael Pollan et al. Made Me Want to Eat Cheetos. Gastronomica vol. 7, 2007, 75-79.

Further reading:

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.
Dylan Clark, The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine, Ethnology, vol. 43, no. 1, 2004, 19-31
Alison Leitch, Slow Food and the Politics of 'Virtuous Globalization', In David Inglis and Debra Gimlin (eds) The Globalization of Food. Oxford: Berg, 2009, 45-64.
Julie Guthman, Bringing good food to others: investigating the subjects of alternative food practice. Cultural Geographies, vol. 15, 2008, 431-447.

Week 7. Obesity: public health problem, source of 'fat pride', cause of 'slow death'?

Wednesday April 12

Since the 1990s, the Australian media has talked of an obesity crisis. We will discuss various lenses through which to view these bigger bodies and (through which people with bigger bodies view themselves). Curves, fat, cellulite - all are attributed different status across cultures and within cultures. Honing in on Australia, we will canvass a public health perspective; the issue of socio-economic disadvantage, urban lives and the unequal distribution of obesity related illness across geographic spaces; the rise of a 'fat pride' movement, which challenges fat shaming and reclaims a range of body sizes as a source of beauty and pleasure; and cultural theorist Lauren Berlant's notion of 'slow death'.

Required reading:

Murray, Samantha. The 'Normal' and the 'Pathological': 'Obesity' and the Dis-eased 'Fat' Body, in The Fat Female Body. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 44-68.
Yates-Doerr, Emily. The Weight of the Self: Care and Compassion in Guatemalan Dietary Choices, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol.26(1), 2012, 136-158.
Lauren Berlant, Slow Death (Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency), Critical Inquiry, vol. 33, no. 4, 2007, 754-780.

Further reading:

Megan Warin et al. Short horizons and obesity futures: Disjunctures between public health interventions and everyday temporalities, Social Science & Medicine, Vol.128, 2015, .309-315.

April 11-28: Mid-semester recess, no lectures or tutorials

Week 8. Eating the Other? Food, Ethnicity and Australian Identity

Wednesday May 3

Another year, another lamb ad. This year, however, Meat and Livestock Australia depicted Aboriginal people hosting a beach BBQ for successive waves of 'boat people', drawing criticism from both Indigenous figures and those who interpreted the ad's inclusive representation as a threat to white Australian identity. Why is meat so central to constructions of Australian national identity? This week we will challenge and enrich a popular account of Australian food culture, which leaves little room for Indigenous food practices and which assumes that a monocultural Anglo diet changed only in the post WW2 period. We will think critically about the understanding of Indigenous people as 'hunters and gatherers' and about the terms of cosmopolitan multicultural food consumption.

Required 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.

Further 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.
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.
Michael Symons, excerpts from One Continuous Picnic, Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1982, pp. 28-41.
Charlotte Craw, Gustatory Redemption? Colonial Appetites, Historical Tales and the Contemporary Consumption of Australian Native Foods, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, vo. 5, no, 2, 2012, 13-24.
Catie Gressier, Going Feral: Wild Meat consumption and the uncanny in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 27, 2006, 49-65.
Jean Duruz, Eating at the Borders: Culinary Journeys, In Amanda Wise and Selvaraj Velayutham (eds), Everyday Multiculturalism, Basingtstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 105-121.

Week 9. The Andean diet and ethnomedical concepts of health and disease

Wednesday May 10

Guest lecturer: Freya Saich. Freya completed a Master of Research (Anthropology) at Macquarie and will share with us her experience of conducting research into malnutrition in an Andean community in Peru.

Required reading:

M. J. Weismantel, Tasty meals and bitter gifts: Consumption and production in the Ecuadorian Andes, Food and Foodways, vol. 5, no. 1, 1991, 79-94.
R. Corr, Reciprocity, Communion, And Sacrifice: Food in Andean Ritual and Social Life, Food and Foodways, vol. 10, no. 1, 2002, 1-25.

Week 10: No lecture or tutorials. Eating Experience Research report due Wednesday May 17.

Week 11. Hunger

Wednesday May 24

According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates, about 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, 'were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2014-2016'. Global hunger is a serious issue, however it is not our exclusive focus this week. We will explore a broad range of settings and scenarios in which people go hungry. Anthropologist Megan Warin conducted ethnographic research with anorectics undergoing treatment, in order to understand the meanings they attributed to their own bodies. We will also read about a series of Turkish political prisoners' hunger strikes and learn more in the lecture about the history of the hungry body as a political weapon. We are not seeking to compare these experiences of hunger but to learn more about why hunger forms part of the human experience even in societies where access to food is not considered a problem.

Required reading:

Megan Warin, ‘Me and My Disgusting Body’ in Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of Anorexia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010.
Banu Bargu, ‘Prisoners in Revolt’ in Starve and Immolate, Columbia University Press, 2016.

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.
Fiona Wright, ‘On Increments’ in Small Acts of Disappearance, Artamon, NSW: Giramondo, 2015.

Week 12. Kitchens, cooking and the senses.

Wednesday May 31

Guest lecturer: Dr Lindy McDougall

Readings TBA.

Bring food and/or recipe books to your tutorial to share with your classmates. Do you have a story about that food? Does it evoke a particular personal memory? Does it link you more generally to a place or collective experience? How did you learn to cook it?

Week 13: Course Overview

This week looks back over the course, drawing together key themes of disgust and desire; boundary making; interconnectedness and entanglements; food and gender, class and ethnic identities; the social relations that surround food; hunger, protest and exploitation.

This week's tutorials will assist you in the writing of your take home exam.

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_2016.html

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

Complaint Management Procedure for Students and Members of the Public http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/complaint_management/procedure.html

Disruption to Studies Policy (in effect until Dec 4th, 2017): http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html

Special Consideration Policy (in effect from Dec 4th, 2017): https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/special-consideration

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.

Student Support

Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/

Learning Skills

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.

Student Enquiries

For all student enquiries, visit Student Connect at ask.mq.edu.au

IT Help

For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/offices_and_units/information_technology/help/.

When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use of IT Resources Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.

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 and recipes 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 food classification, 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 and recipes in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;
Develop problem-solving skills through this unit's focus on applying and adapting anthropological knowledge to real world problems;

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 food classification, 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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;
Research the food-related practices of everyday life in a range of ethnographic contexts;
Come together to share food and recipes in order to gain an embodied knowledge of and insight into food preparation and consumption;

Assessment tasks

Weekly Quizzes
Eating Experience Research
Take Home Exam

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 food classification, 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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
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

Eating Experience Research
Take Home Exam

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

Weekly Quizzes
Eating Experience Research
Take Home Exam

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
Weekly Quizzes
Eating Experience Research
Take Home Exam

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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;

Assessment task

Take Home Exam

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 and class, identity and migration, and practices of everyday life;
Consider the impact of globalisation and industrialisation on food systems, communities and animals; critically engage with resistance and responses to these corporate multinational food chains;