Food and power : expressions of food-politics in South Asia / edited by Kanchan Mukhopadhyay

incl. bibliographical references and index

List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Introduction -- 1. Changing economy and culture of food in Spiti / Sumit Mukherjee -- 2. Tracing the beef politics of North India / Ziya Us Salam -- 3. Dravidian food culture / M. Sreenathan -- 4. Food for musicians / Svetlana Ryzhakova -- 5. Transaction of food, beverage and ranking of space / Nabakumar Duary -- 6. Man, medicine and foods in Chittagong Hill tracts, Bangladesh / Ala Uddin -- 7. The role of panthibhojanam in the Navodhana movement of Kerala / B. Francis Kulirani -- 8. Feeding the Jarawas / Vishvajit Pandya & Madhumita Mazumdar -- 9. Asserting 'freedom' / Urmimala Sarkar Munsi -- 10. Food culture and power relations in Nepali society / Om Gurung & Uddhav Rai -- 11. Sustenance in the margin / Chhanda Mukhopadhyay -- 12. Hearth to heaven / Shibani Roy -- 13. Materiality of Boro food culture / Dharitri Narzary -- 14. Food, tradition and politics among the Santals / Kanchan Mukhopadhyay -- 15. Food tradition of Chandal community / Saradindu Biswas -- 16. Place, space, identity and transforming cuisine among the Karen of the Andamans / Shiba Desor, Manish Chandi & Saw John Aung Thong -- 17. Small community and large industries / Amitabha Sarkar -- 18. The idea of food / Ratna Dhar -- 19. Gender politics and food practices in urban West Bengal / Moumita Dey -- About the Editor and Contributors -- Index

"Food practices of a people is product of multiple factors. People often eat what they prefer to eat, but it is not so simple always. Sometimes they eat what is available to them or what they are asked to eat. Thus, their natural or cultural preferences are interfered with by endogenous as well as exogenous forces capable of influencing their opinion. In India and its neighbouring countries, religion, caste and analogous systems of social ranking of a group of people, and their economic standing, often delimit their food practices. The state and market forces too influence food related behaviour of people by exercising control over production and trade of food and its availability and accessibility to the consumers. The present volume envisages understanding power relation between those who eat and those who decide (or at least try to decide) what the eaters should eat. As factors prompting food practices are multiple, manifestations of power relations are bound to be varied. Different chapters of this volume have examined food practices as expressions of varied forms of power relations. while examining the core issues, authors with various academic backgrounds possessing varied research experience have highlighted different dimensions of those common issues"-- Provided by publisher