1 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:32,520 Hi, Krishnendu. 2 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,040 So, our our contextual information to start, as we both say, our names. 3 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:38,680 So, go ahead. 4 00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:40,920 Okay. I'm Krishnendu Ray. 5 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:42,840 And I'm Margot Finn. 6 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,400 Today is April 19th. 7 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:48,160 It's April 19th. 8 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:49,480 You're right. Saturday. 9 00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:50,240 Yeah. 10 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:53,240 Yeah, it's April 19th, 2025. 11 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:56,600 And it's about 11 in the morning, a quarter to 11 12 00:00:56,680 --> 00:00:59,400 eastern time. 13 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:00,800 Where are you? 14 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:02,920 I'm in New York City. 15 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:05,920 Just south of Washington Square Park. 16 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:09,480 I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 17 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:10,680 Oh, it looks beautiful. 18 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:12,240 Your back, your background. 19 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:14,440 Is that kind of real? Or is that fake? That's real. 20 00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:17,520 We have a living wall in our cafeteria. 21 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:20,640 So I came in here because nobody's in the office 22 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:22,640 this weekend, so I can be in here without disruption. 23 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:24,800 But it's so my my own office is 24 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:25,680 it's not pretty. 25 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:27,720 This is gorgeous, in fact. 26 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:30,200 Yeah. I love it. 27 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:31,200 Okay. 28 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:33,920 That, I think is not the context that we need. 29 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:37,280 So to start off, can you tell us a little bit about you? 30 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:39,320 Okay. 31 00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:44,480 I am, from India, and I spent first half of my life in India. 32 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:49,000 Went to college in Delhi University, came to the U.S. 33 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:53,080 to work on my PhD with the World Systems 34 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:56,080 Gang at SUNY Binghamton in sociology. 35 00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:59,840 And, of course, in 36 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:02,840 grad school, we all wanted to write, 37 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:07,600 what would have been a five volume history of historical capitalism, 38 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:10,680 but realized we can do that, or 39 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,680 mimic Wallerstein or Giovanni Arrighi. 40 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,000 So, I almost oscillated to the other end, 41 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:21,880 and that was at the same part of at the same time. 42 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:25,240 I was also assaulted with, kind of a sense of nostalgia, 43 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,760 about Indian food, Indian home cooking. 44 00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:33,200 And I realized that, though I had been involved 45 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,200 in progressive politics in trade union movements. 46 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,240 I had never cooked a meal for myself, had always 47 00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:42,240 depended on other people, especially women. 48 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:46,560 My mother, mostly. My aunts, often. 49 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:49,880 Parts of the work was done by domestic workers. 50 00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:53,040 And I was a little kind of startled. 51 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:57,040 It was, I would say it's almost like, 52 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,560 the opposite of an anthropological experience, 53 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:03,880 which is I'm an inverted anthropologist. 54 00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:08,200 So, I realized what was missing and what I had failed to pay attention to 55 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:11,880 until I left, my cultural context. 56 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:16,800 And that sent me off into this direction of thinking about food. 57 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:19,800 I thought it would be kind of just quotidian about doing 58 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,800 and not thinking until I ran into, 59 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,880 Jack Goody's Cooking, Cuisine, and Class 60 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:30,360 and my, Professor Giovanni Arrighi's home. 61 00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:32,800 He used to invite us maybe once a month. 62 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:35,760 And that's the first place. For instance, I had pizza. 63 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:38,040 That's the first place I had grappa. 64 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:41,560 And that's the first place I met anyone from Afghanistan. 65 00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:42,840 Anyone from Namibia. 66 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:47,960 It was a kind of a fantastic, program of grad students everywhere in the world. 67 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,720 And it is in that context, in his living room 68 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:52,960 that I ran into Cooking, Cuisine and Class. 69 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:57,080 Then I realized, wow, you can really not just do cooking 70 00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,120 and feed yourself and feed others, 71 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,480 but can also think seriously about it. 72 00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:08,720 So ,that became the point when I oscillated away from very large scale, 73 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:12,320 long term historical change to relatively 74 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:16,040 small scale, small term, short term, 75 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:19,040 which eventually became my dissertation. 76 00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:22,440 The Migrants Table, which is a household of 126 77 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:26,400 Bengali American households and Bengali American 78 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:30,600 because I knew Odia, Bengali, Hindi amongst the Indian languages. 79 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,960 So, that was an asset I already have had at that point of time. 80 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:38,520 So that, led eventually to my, 81 00:04:38,760 --> 00:04:41,600 work on, food and culture. 82 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:45,280 And most of my work is food and immigrants. 83 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:49,360 That that first book was on, 84 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:50,720 domestic cooking. 85 00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:55,760 Then, the next one would be on immigrants in the restaurant industry, 86 00:04:55,760 --> 00:05:00,600 especially petty commodity production, which was ethnic restaurateur, etc.. 87 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,600 So, that was the start of it. 88 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:07,240 And where have you done most of the research 89 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,680 that you, that you just described or most of your research in general? 90 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:13,840 Yeah. So, 91 00:05:13,840 --> 00:05:15,600 as you know, in some ways 92 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:20,760 a lot of research is what you stumble into, and the doors 93 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:26,520 that stay open and the other doors that, shut on you my aunt, 94 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:32,200 the only part of my family who was in the United States was in Chicago. So, 95 00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:34,160 I flew in into 96 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:38,400 Chicago, stayed with her and in Chicago. 97 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,520 And, this is we are talking about the early 90s 98 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:48,680 and, I was I used to go to visit her every summer break. 99 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:51,880 Partly a fellowship is never enough 100 00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:54,600 to pay for a summers. 101 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:58,200 And, even though we lived in a quite a cheap town, 102 00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:02,600 an old white working class town, Binghamton, and not enough money. 103 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:06,400 So, I would go and visit her and she would take me to this, 104 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,160 I think it was called NABC and, 105 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:16,360 BAGC, Bengali Association of Greater Chicago and National 106 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:19,560 I think it's called National Association of Bengali Americans. 107 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:23,400 So I would go and 108 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:25,480 visit her and she would take me to these things 109 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:28,840 because in the summer, I think their events happened in June or July. 110 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:34,440 And one year I stumbled into this, book they were selling at the reception 111 00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:39,760 cost $10, which was all the names and all the addresses 112 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,080 and telephone numbers of all the Bengalis in their network. 113 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:47,280 I said, whoa, they're the best ten bucks I've spent in my life. 114 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:51,840 And that basically gave me, 115 00:06:51,840 --> 00:06:54,480 the addresses and names, that I could send it to my, 116 00:06:54,480 --> 00:06:57,480 my, I designed my survey. 117 00:06:58,600 --> 00:07:00,000 Excuse me. 118 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:02,400 Looking back, it's in my first book. 119 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:03,640 You will see the surveys. 120 00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:06,640 Long and unworldly and endless. 121 00:07:07,280 --> 00:07:11,400 But, people were very generous with their time. 122 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:14,400 I send it out to lots. 123 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:17,720 I think every other person on that list, 124 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:20,680 of course, half of them bounced back 125 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:23,680 for outdated addresses, etc. 126 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:27,320 So, so it happened to be it's 127 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:32,640 associated very strongly centered around Chicago, Chicago suburbs, especially, 128 00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:36,600 especially Naperville, which which has subsequently become 129 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:41,440 one of the important sites of, Asian led suburbanization. 130 00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:45,440 So, that was my first my dissertation and first book. 131 00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:51,560 And it was very clear in that work that it was restricted in some ways 132 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:57,000 to Bengali specifically, with Bengali Americans who were often professionals. 133 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,840 So, I wanted to look at those who were not professionals. 134 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:05,680 The other part of the Bengali migration, often from Bangladesh, 135 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:09,560 who run restaurants, in fact, they run most of the restaurants 136 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,920 through most of the history of Western cities. 137 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:15,480 So, that's 138 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:18,480 why my next book, the book after that was the, 139 00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:22,480 Ethnic Restauranteur or which, 140 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,280 almost all of its work was done in New York City. 141 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:29,440 And I would say in 142 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:32,440 some, some place specific, 143 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:34,240 that's the work I have done. 144 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,520 And my most recent work has looked at street vendors 145 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:41,480 in New York, but also in the Global South, especially in Indian cities 146 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:46,080 like Delhi, have done interviews in Delhi and, Bangalore, 147 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,640 sorry, Bengaluru 148 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:52,640 and then a little bit in Calcutta. 149 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:57,160 And my most recent work has been on the Indian Ocean world. 150 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,480 So there's a little bit of work in Zanzibar, cooking 151 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:05,280 and which is mostly looking at connections across the Indian Ocean world. 152 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:05,920 Sorry. 153 00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:08,920 It became a long answer to your short question. 154 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:11,680 You've done a lot of really interesting work, though. 155 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:13,560 I wonder 156 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:17,320 if, they want me to ask you about what food studies means to you. 157 00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:20,320 But in particular, I think I'm curious about, 158 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:25,440 given the kind of cosmopolitanism of your work, even when you're restricted 159 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:30,520 to suburban Chicago, there's still a it's a cosmopolitan project, inherently. 160 00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:33,040 Right? 161 00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:35,400 Do you think that food studies 162 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:39,960 as a whole does too little cosmopolitan work? 163 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:44,880 Is is the field itself to, I guess, parochial. 164 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:48,000 And I would I get particularly U.S 165 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 focused in your, in your view. 166 00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:54,360 I think two things you're hinting at something 167 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:57,680 I've been wrestling with and seeing, 168 00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:00,560 too much of food studies is basically 169 00:10:00,560 --> 00:10:03,560 forms of methodological nationalism 170 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:07,320 within the nation. And, 171 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,080 useful work. 172 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:14,040 But often, it assumes the nation state. It, 173 00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:18,520 and think about, 174 00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:20,640 excuse me, 175 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:23,880 my, my lineage in that sense, my, 176 00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,440 I have wrestled with largely cultural sociology. 177 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:30,040 Take the at Pierre Bourdieu's work, Distinction. 178 00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:31,960 If you think 179 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:34,960 about Distinction, it is basically about France. 180 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:40,360 And because of the, legal constraints, he cannot talk about race. 181 00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:42,720 And he doesn't talk about transnational. 182 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:44,000 He doesn't talk about migrants. 183 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:49,960 It's a beautiful and a powerful, data driven, conceptually productive work, 184 00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:53,280 especially on class and gender, 185 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:56,880 but rather, inadequate, 186 00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:00,560 completely about in some ways, transnational movements 187 00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:04,880 that the world was already exposed to when, Bourdieu was writing that. 188 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:07,200 And the translation happens. This is in the 80s. 189 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:10,200 The translation in English happens in 1984. 190 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:13,320 So late 70s, early 80s. 191 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:16,520 Today, there's even less reason, 192 00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:19,360 because of circulation of people, 193 00:11:19,360 --> 00:11:22,200 working class people, professional 194 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:25,440 people, like me, and, 195 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:29,320 I think, too much of food studies 196 00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:32,640 tends to assume a nation state. 197 00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:37,560 And in doing that is blind, to the challenges. 198 00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:41,760 Then on the other side, in sociology, in anthro, 199 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:46,160 there's a long lineage of studying of immigrants. 200 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:49,320 Okay. And I think in some ways, 201 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:51,200 the studying 202 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:55,320 of immigrants by the way, transnational immigrant migrants is much better 203 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:59,840 developed in food studies in sociology than I would say 204 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:02,840 in terms of the study of 205 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:05,920 intranational migrants, like, for instance, to give you an example. 206 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:09,240 So we probably know a lot more 207 00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:15,040 about Indian migrants elsewhere in the world than about migrants, working 208 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:18,520 class migrants in India, which is almost 209 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:21,520 500 million people that are moving. 210 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:26,720 And remember, this international migration is only a thin end of largely 211 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:31,080 much more dynamic migration happening within Nigeria, within India, 212 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:34,680 within China, any of the big nations with substantial 213 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:37,760 population movement 214 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:42,000 from country to the city, small town to the big city. 215 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:47,280 So, what you're pointing to is in some ways the potential, 216 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:52,160 I think, for future work, much more transnational work. 217 00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:56,360 But also, I think intranational migration, 218 00:12:56,360 --> 00:13:00,720 I find there's, I know a lot less about intranational food 219 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:04,280 and intranational migration than international migration. 220 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:09,040 Struggling with my unmute button. 221 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:11,560 But, yeah, that's really interesting. 222 00:13:11,560 --> 00:13:12,240 China too. 223 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,960 I'm thinking about just the incredible amount of intranational migration 224 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,200 and how that has reshaped cuisine particularly. 225 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:20,280 And and I know very little about that. 226 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:22,400 And part of it, a little writing about it. 227 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:25,400 Yeah. Interesting. 228 00:13:25,560 --> 00:13:28,480 I think that leads well into this question that, that we both like, 229 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:32,040 that Warren Belasco once stated that to do food studies 230 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:35,280 and academic needs to be a generalist, an anthropologist 231 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:38,400 and a poet, an economist and a philosopher, etc. 232 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:40,320 more than a specialist. 233 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:41,160 What do you think? 234 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:42,960 Does that apply to your work? 235 00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:44,440 And what about the field as a whole? 236 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:45,720 Are we all generalists? 237 00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:47,440 Should we be generalists? 238 00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:48,760 Very good question. 239 00:13:48,760 --> 00:13:51,880 And Warren is so good at encapsulating some of this. 240 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:57,240 I'll give you a complicated answer, which is 241 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:00,320 I used to think so, 242 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:04,560 and that was partly linked to my location, my location. 243 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:08,280 And maybe this also explains my association with ASFS, 244 00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:13,080 my association with the, with the Association 245 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:14,760 for the Study of Food and Society 246 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:18,480 started when I started teaching at the Culinary Institute of America. 247 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:21,960 So, as you know, it's a cooking school. 248 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:25,640 And, it came out of a hunger 249 00:14:25,640 --> 00:14:30,600 for me to talk to other people who were teaching about food, 250 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:34,120 but not specifically cooking or being a sommelier. 251 00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:40,440 And, ASFS became this exemplary organization 252 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:46,040 which had in it a folklorist, sociologist, anthropologist, economist. 253 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:49,800 And I could in fact go to these conferences. 254 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:55,760 This is happening with me mostly at the end of the 1990s and early 2000. 255 00:14:56,720 --> 00:15:01,000 And at that point of time, my hunger, 256 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:04,280 even though I was kind of trained as a sociologist, 257 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:09,240 was, could academics speak to some of us, 258 00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,800 who are building careers, who are teaching, who are working 259 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:15,800 with students who don't come from households 260 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:19,480 with college degrees, often at the Culinary Institute 261 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:22,920 at that point of time and, and modulate 262 00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:28,560 moderate shape, their language, shape in some ways, Warren's 263 00:15:28,720 --> 00:15:31,560 point about the poetics of their language, 264 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:35,280 where the conceptual can still be sociological, but the way you think 265 00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:39,240 and write and express yourself orally and express yourself in written forms 266 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:42,240 should be outward facing. 267 00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:44,760 In that sense, 268 00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:47,760 a much more attention 269 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,960 to the audience, much more attention 270 00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:55,680 to the consumer of, the knowledge we were producing, 271 00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:59,720 within the various fields and people in the, in ASFS. 272 00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:04,920 Today, I'm the director of the doctoral program at NYU. 273 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,400 Almost at the opposite end of it. 274 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,720 And I have to constantly work with my students 275 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:16,320 not to be all over the place, 276 00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:21,200 not to borrow, not to be referening, 277 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:25,680 if they're working in this sociological domain, referencing genetics, 278 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:30,120 the friends, the referencing biology that we are not experts in. 279 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,040 So I almost have kind of flipped my position 280 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:36,240 where today 281 00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:39,240 I feel some of the, 282 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:43,240 outward facing, 283 00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:46,240 generalist, posture 284 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,840 is unproductive for my doctoral students because at the end of it, 285 00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:55,040 they have to be taken seriously by specialists and producers 286 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:58,280 of knowledge in production of knowledge, not in the consumption of it. 287 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:02,080 So today, for instance, I, I find, 288 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,720 the opposite problem, which is too much of food 289 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:10,160 studies is pitched outwards 290 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:13,800 to a consumer of knowledge rather than a producer of new knowledge. 291 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:17,840 And of course, in some ways a producer of new knowledge 292 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:21,160 in in the way it is constituted in the American university. 293 00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:25,560 And most universities in the world, which is largely a disciplinary structure 294 00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:28,800 that emerged at the end of the 19th century, early 20th century. 295 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:30,800 And you have to what? 296 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:31,920 And what does that mean? 297 00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:34,560 You have to pay attention to method. 298 00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:36,000 And if you are doing 299 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,240 the social scientific work, you have to pay attention to measurement. 300 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:43,160 If you are doing humanities work, you have to pay attention to 301 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:46,680 metaphor making, which we called sometimes called theory. 302 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:47,840 Okay. 303 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:52,600 And so and to do that, you have to be much more familiar 304 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:56,120 with what has gone on before in the various disciplines. 305 00:17:56,520 --> 00:17:59,360 And at the end of it, I ask our students 306 00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:02,280 to have kind of one, 307 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:06,200 feat in food studies, but the other one in some other discipline 308 00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,680 or, a more densely constituted interdisciplinary field, 309 00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:14,200 it could be cultural sociology, it could be cultural anthropology. 310 00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:18,560 It could be American studies, it could be Asian-American studies. 311 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:23,160 And so in some ways, what has happened is and I think this is my larger point, 312 00:18:24,120 --> 00:18:25,520 the short answer to your 313 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:29,160 kind of beautiful and powerful question is it depends on your location. 314 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:32,640 The generalist is good 315 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:35,760 and useful for especially public communication. 316 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:38,040 Say give an example from my department. 317 00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,240 Marion Nestle is a terrific example of someone 318 00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:44,240 who's basically taking, 319 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:46,560 nutrition knowledge, taking community health 320 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:49,560 knowledge, and largely playing it to outsiders. 321 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:50,400 Okay. 322 00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:52,160 And largely the source of a journalist. 323 00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:53,720 And that's her claim to fame. 324 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,360 She's basically, not a nutritionist, okay? 325 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:02,160 She's not a lab scientist, but she understands it, 326 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:07,040 and she communicates, to people outside, the academy. 327 00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,080 That's one role. Okay. 328 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:15,360 But I think, if we are going to be professors, 329 00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:18,360 we are going to train other people to be professors. 330 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,320 Then, we will have to give them 331 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:26,760 specialized knowledge of inside the academy, a certain kind 332 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:32,240 of, currency, a certain kind of attention to method, certain kind of like what? 333 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:35,640 For outsiders is often the boring scaffolding of the place. 334 00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:39,080 They just want to see the completed building, not the scaffolding of it. 335 00:19:39,360 --> 00:19:41,280 So I think it is 336 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:43,960 my answer is 337 00:19:43,960 --> 00:19:47,280 whether you are a generalist or a specialist depends 338 00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:50,280 on your position in the academy 339 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,480 and the domain you want 340 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,280 to inhabit, and the audience you have. 341 00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:00,680 Does that 342 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:02,320 That makes a lot of sense. 343 00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:05,760 I mean, I think what I some of what I'm hearing too, is the call to 344 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:11,120 to to be specialists, to be legible and to have a certain rigor in our work, 345 00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:15,880 but to not lose the ability to speak to people who are not and then specialists. 346 00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:16,920 And, you know. 347 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,160 Ideally, both those things, you know, ideally, ideally 348 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,160 you in some ways, 349 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,480 show the specialist in the field what's in the fields, 350 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:29,880 what's your domain of specialization and takes it be taken seriously. 351 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:35,280 But you try to communicate with, policymakers, with the public, 352 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:37,360 and in some ways food. 353 00:20:37,360 --> 00:20:40,480 And one of the reasons why ASFS has become so visible 354 00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:44,880 and important is the public discussion about, cuisine, culture, 355 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:48,960 consumer culture, cooking shows, etc. 356 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,720 and to be able to talk to that audience. 357 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:53,400 So you're absolutely right. 358 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:57,960 In ideal, an ideal food study scholar is a specialist 359 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:01,840 who can speak to the non-specialist. 360 00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:03,960 I really like that. 361 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,840 Speaking about, ASFS you mentioned, 362 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:09,720 first encountering them when you were at the Culinary Institute? 363 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:11,480 Teaching there? 364 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:13,800 What was your first encounter with ASFS, like? 365 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:16,000 Did you go to a conference? Did you? 366 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,880 And so you're a junior scholar. Just give us a little bit of, like what? 367 00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,000 Your first. Yeah. 368 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:21,760 So I was a I was a 369 00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:24,960 PhD student who had run out of funding, which is a typical example. 370 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:29,280 So my advisor, one of my advisors, Mark Selden, 371 00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:32,560 said, hey, the Culinary Institute is looking for someone to, 372 00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:36,600 to build their liberal arts curriculum. 373 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,480 And I said, wow, that would be cool. 374 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:41,640 If I get the job, it's unlikely I'll get the job 375 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:44,240 because I knew nothing about Haute cuisine. 376 00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,840 I didn't know anything about a Western kind of cuisine. 377 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:50,960 I hadn't had a glass of wine at that point of time, you know, 378 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,480 and probably hadn't had any cheese other than paneer in India, you know? 379 00:21:56,120 --> 00:21:59,880 So I said, I won't get it, but boy, wouldn't that be fun. 380 00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:04,480 It is like asking, ethnomusicologist, to teach at Juilliard. 381 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:05,440 Right? 382 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:09,120 So, I ended up getting that job, partly because I was lucky, 383 00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,960 partly because they were very intrigued at the CIA that anyone was studying food 384 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,880 and especially cuisine seriously. 385 00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:18,360 And I think the dean at that point of time 386 00:22:18,360 --> 00:22:21,400 was a kind of a raving, raging Indophile. 387 00:22:23,120 --> 00:22:26,120 So I think I got the job because he thought I knew thing 388 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,160 about things like yoga, which I don't know anything about. 389 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:33,680 And so I got the job and then kind of, 390 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:36,480 ended up, in that context. 391 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:39,640 You know what, what I have done now in the process, I've totally forgotten. 392 00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,640 What was your question? 393 00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,960 What what was your first encounter with ASFS? 394 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:47,040 You're a junior scholar. 395 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:48,960 You hear about them, but, like, then what? 396 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,600 Okay, so I go to the CIA. 397 00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:55,000 I kind of, CIA, by the way, the other CIA, the Culinary 398 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:58,000 Institute of America, 399 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,440 and, and start teaching there. 400 00:23:02,120 --> 00:23:05,120 And my first exposure was through the, 401 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:11,520 listserv, and there I could be in, in, the Hudson Valley 402 00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:15,520 with a very busy teaching schedule at my as my colleagues at the CIA 403 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,640 still have almost teach 3 to 5 days a week. 404 00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:23,920 But I could really participate in this robust discussion. 405 00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:27,080 And, the listserv used to be a lot more robust. 406 00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:31,200 In fact, at that point of time, partly because we didn't know each other, partly 407 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:35,640 because we couldn't go to conferences, partly because we didn't have time, money. 408 00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:40,640 And so, for me, that was absolutely godsend. 409 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,720 Then that's where I could, 410 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,360 the people I was reading, people like Janet Poppendieck 411 00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:48,200 like Warren Belasco, 412 00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:52,200 like Amy Bentley, 413 00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,680 and like, Marion Nestle. 414 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:56,560 I could listen to them. 415 00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,560 I could engage in a conversation with, with them, 416 00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:02,040 in a relatively informal manner. 417 00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:03,760 That has always been its characteristic. 418 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:07,040 I partly that's the digital platforms kind of style. 419 00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:12,920 And, and so it was this opening, Democratic opening to a wider 420 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,920 group of people, maybe, what, 200, 300 people, 421 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,920 out of which maybe 20 people. 422 00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,440 Andy Smith was an important figure in that. 423 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,800 So for me, it was through the listserv and the platform. 424 00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:28,800 In some ways, it's kind of a bit sad that the, 425 00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:33,600 listserv, has become, a little moribund. 426 00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:38,040 It like, it livens up once in a while, and you can often see it 427 00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,040 that is, that happens through a junior scholar. 428 00:24:41,360 --> 00:24:44,400 And a professor, who's seeking 429 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:48,200 a domain, of expertise that they don't have. 430 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,280 I don't know what the 431 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:54,960 cure of enlivening that is, but for me, 432 00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:59,640 that was a very crucial platform, to join ASFS. 433 00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:03,520 And then it is true that that I got pulled into the conference sources. 434 00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,840 Then I only subsequently went to conferences, which is, of course, 435 00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,840 a question of both money and time. 436 00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,400 So how did you go from mostly participating in the listserv 437 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,400 to being the president of the organization? 438 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:24,120 I'm thinking as you ask 439 00:25:24,120 --> 00:25:27,120 this question, one is I think 440 00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:32,400 I've had a long experience of political activism and mobilization. 441 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,680 So though I'm an introvert, you wouldn't know that if you talk to me. 442 00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,680 I come across as kind of 443 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,640 talkative and maybe even too loud. 444 00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:48,640 And that's partly the politics 445 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,720 of South Asia, politics in South Asia, which is kind of a robust 446 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:57,080 public sphere, engaged in various, kinds of politics. 447 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,160 But the point of that is it taught me 448 00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,640 I was a provincial kid in India who had gone to the big city 449 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,320 and trade union politics and student politics 450 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,800 had allowed me to kind of, occupy, inhabit my body, 451 00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,920 and in a particular kind of a space, and assert myself 452 00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,920 with a certain kind of clarity and not be pushed around. 453 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:24,120 So I think that had given me a kind of, 454 00:26:25,120 --> 00:26:28,120 quasi public public presence, 455 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,600 that as I started talking in these forums, 456 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,080 people would listen to me and then specifically, 457 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,520 I had become involved in the, as a member. 458 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:46,080 Then I was, I think about invited as a board member and, 459 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,400 and as a board member had gone through, 460 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,560 three presidents and I won't name them, 461 00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,360 where there was a lot of discussion through three years 462 00:26:58,360 --> 00:27:02,120 as how our 501(c)(3) 463 00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:06,240 which is the IRS legal code, status had lapsed. 464 00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,720 We didn't have an accountant. 465 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,400 And so in some ways, we were not a legitimate, not-for-profit. 466 00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,880 And we would have these discussions and it went on for three years 467 00:27:17,120 --> 00:27:19,120 and there was no resolution of it. 468 00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:24,360 I said classic so to say, Humanities scholar, which is very good at talking, 469 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,240 but we are not so good at doing stuff, getting things done. 470 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,800 So I think it was, 471 00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,040 with Greg and may have been Ken Albala. 472 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,000 And I said, this is crazy. 473 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,920 Someone has to step in and and see what can be done and get it done. 474 00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:46,440 So anyway, I think it was 2014, 475 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,320 that, 476 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,320 I, I ran for elections. 477 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:59,320 It was a much, softer, a smoother, sweeter election than the elections I 478 00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,760 had fought on Indian campuses and got beat up by the right wing. 479 00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:05,440 So that was a probably that might have been 480 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,960 this might have been the first election I won. 481 00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,160 Of course, there was no other opposing candidate. 482 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,800 No one wanted to be president. 483 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,600 And, but within one year, in 20 484 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,360 between 2014 and 2015, we had we hired a lawyer. 485 00:28:21,360 --> 00:28:25,960 We had hired an accountant, we hired a logo designer. 486 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:26,880 We had a logo. 487 00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:29,080 We didn't have a logo before that. 488 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,080 And, we got our 489 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:33,280 501(c)(3) 490 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:34,480 I think that's what it's called. 491 00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,200 Status, reinstated. 492 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:38,760 And it was kind of it took us a year. 493 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:40,080 It took us a little bit of money. 494 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,560 And at this point of time, we had enough money, 495 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,680 enough members, and enough returns from kind of. 496 00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,160 At that point, it was Bloomsbury, 497 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,960 to, in fact, have resources to make it work. 498 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,040 So, I would say the short answer, 499 00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:00,720 the two part answer to your question, why President, was that? 500 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:05,840 I had to become a kind of a quasi public figure, and I was just infuriated 501 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,840 by endless discussion without action. 502 00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:13,920 I remember your presidential address. 503 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:14,640 That's quite lovely. 504 00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:18,360 I just assumed that you wanted to enlighten us about theory, 505 00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:21,600 so. And, that's just, 506 00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,600 tangential outcome of it. 507 00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:26,960 Are there any, 508 00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:31,600 conferences or ASFS events or other other things 509 00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,600 that stand out in your mind from your tenure with the organization? 510 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,000 Yeah, I, I loved, the wrestling 511 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000 with the question of the journal. 512 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,400 Because a couple of people, including Warren Belasco, 513 00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,320 had designed the journal, and we were part of that discussion that you cannot. 514 00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,320 And here it goes back to your question about expert knowledge 515 00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,240 and a public, facing one. 516 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,960 So we needed a journal where a specialist could be publishing and peer 517 00:29:57,960 --> 00:29:58,720 reviewed, etc.. 518 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,200 And Warren had designed a beautiful journal. 519 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,040 It was almost too beautiful to be published 520 00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:07,480 because it had a dimensions that didn't fit on the bookshelf very well. 521 00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:09,560 It was gorgeous, but 522 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,120 it didn't fit the bookshelves 523 00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,200 very well, so we had to change it into the standard FCS. 524 00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,120 This is Food, Culture and Society. 525 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,880 We had to decide on the name. 526 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,760 We were going to decide what did the, 527 00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:24,640 the ampersand should look like, should it be? 528 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,520 And. Food, Culture and Society. Lovely. Kind of. 529 00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:31,560 This was remember, 20, 30 people on the listserv elsewhere 530 00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:33,240 talking endlessly about this thing. 531 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,120 It was a lot of fun stuff. 532 00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:37,080 Humanities and social sciences 533 00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,080 people are good at, doing 534 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:42,320 but again, when 535 00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,720 and I think that is, I would say, my other major contribution. 536 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,360 When I became president, I realized our editors were not paid. 537 00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,160 Lisa Heldke and Ken Albala were editors. 538 00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,760 It's an immense amount of work, 539 00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,400 and they were not paid and there was no good reason. 540 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,840 It's not like we can pay them a market value. 541 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:02,680 But, the company, the, 542 00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:05,280 Bloomsbury 543 00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:08,400 and then Taylor and Francis were making obviously making money 544 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,560 at least cultural capital out of it in terms of their portfolio. 545 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:13,440 So, there there was no good reason. 546 00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,440 So, I was very aggressive in 547 00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:18,160 negotiating. 548 00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,160 I said the editor has to be paid a stipend. 549 00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:27,880 And, I didn't have very many other alternatives to kind of find out how much. 550 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:31,120 So, we started at $12,000. 551 00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,920 And then, honestly, 552 00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:38,880 I, argued for, negotiated, but failed to get the resources. 553 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,480 I got the 12,000. I wanted $24,000. 554 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:47,000 I wanted the managing editor to be paid the same amount as the editor. 555 00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,000 And, it was it was kind of fantastic 556 00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:55,280 to A look at the 557 00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,280 and work towards the kind of, 558 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:03,600 the, the social infrastructure of producing a journal, peopling it 559 00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,600 with people who gave an immense amount of work, 560 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,640 with no remuneration. So, 561 00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,240 when I became president and I negotiated, 562 00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,440 we got a remuneration and the next, 563 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,800 editor Amy Bentley, I think we started at 12,000. 564 00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,160 I'm hoping it has gone up. 565 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,240 If not, it should be the responsibility of the next, set of leaders to, 566 00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:35,760 in fact, pay the managing editor at least $12,000 and the editor a $12,000. 567 00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,080 Book reviews editor, at least $6,000. 568 00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:43,040 Ideally, that was my kind of ambition. 569 00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,240 But we had never negotiated, and we started negotiating. 570 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,760 And again, that comes back from a fact that I have negotiated all my life. 571 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:55,120 I don't like negotiations, but I've been forced to negotiate. 572 00:32:55,120 --> 00:33:00,480 Negotiate, because in India, I was negotiating about, minimum wage 573 00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:05,040 with my colleagues and policymakers, etc.. 574 00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,160 So, I kind of as I said, 575 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:11,320 I'm very introverted, unless you get me talking and negotiating. 576 00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,960 And then so that that was useful and helpful. 577 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,720 And so I would say that was probably crafting, 578 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:24,480 the FCS, Food, Culture, and Society bringing it to a place where it was 579 00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,720 kind of not regularly published, not systematic. 580 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,440 Now, the weight is getting fatter and fatter. 581 00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,960 You can see they have more than enough material 582 00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:38,000 that we move from a couple of times a year to four times a year now, 583 00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,400 though I was a little cautious because I think that was the last 584 00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:42,680 time I was a board member. 585 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:45,600 I was worried that it would lead 586 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,320 to too much work for the editor to produce something four times a year. 587 00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:53,680 But the demand is very high, and it is getting fatter and fatter. 588 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,680 So, that means we have a very solid supply chain. 589 00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,960 And it is a now amongst one of the premier journals of food studies, 590 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,040 along with, say, think about, Food and Foodways, 591 00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:11,280 Gastronomica, and in some ways Appetite in terms of North America, 592 00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,360 and then globally, it has become 593 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,360 one of the premier food studies journal, 594 00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,320 very happy to be, part of it, 595 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,880 and especially not so much at the editorial end of it, a lot more 596 00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,600 in terms of social, infrastructural end of it, how to get people paid 597 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,640 for doing the stuff that they are doing, especially 598 00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,760 in a academic world where people are mostly underpaid. 599 00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:39,840 We don't pay enough attention to that. 600 00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,200 Honestly, the amount of work that is unpaid 601 00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,240 that people are asked to do in academia and then and that walls off 602 00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:47,400 so many people from being able to do it. Exactly. 603 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,240 You have to be in a privileged position, to be able to do 604 00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:53,240 some of this, which is partly the problem of inclusivity. 605 00:34:53,240 --> 00:34:53,760 Right. 606 00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,040 And it's not it's not surprising that I think I'm 607 00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,360 the only nonwhite president of ASFS so far. 608 00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,720 And part of it is luck and privilege and, 609 00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:06,680 the capacity and willingness to do it. 610 00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,480 This is partly, hampers that is what kind of resources 611 00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,480 we can put into to invite people 612 00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,520 who may not have these privileges that I had. 613 00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,280 That leads really well into there's kind of a pair of questions 614 00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,760 about scholarship and ASFS and the diversity of both. 615 00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:24,720 I think, 616 00:35:24,720 --> 00:35:28,320 I'm going to allow both of you and, and then let you pick whether you want to. 617 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,440 I know it is ASFS is not food studies, but, 618 00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,720 they ask, has the diversity of scholars involved in food 619 00:35:35,720 --> 00:35:39,680 studies been outpaced by the scholarship in food studies? Why? 620 00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,640 And should there be steps to address that? 621 00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:46,640 And also, what has AFSS done to encourage a diversification of its membership 622 00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,920 and leadership, both on cultural, ethnic and class terms 623 00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,920 and on generational terms? 624 00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:54,640 Excellent question. 625 00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,680 And I think ASFS, as has been doing 626 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:02,400 a lot, in terms of the, when I was involved in the board, 627 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,600 in terms of the fellowships available now, it 628 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,200 taking the initiative, I think there's a structural problem. 629 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,160 And the structural problem we gestured towards in your earlier question, 630 00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,200 which is it takes a lot of work. 631 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,680 And most of the work is for free, 632 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,080 and only a few people can afford it, 633 00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:26,280 and they're often usually late in their field, senior in their field. 634 00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,320 So that will tend to be historically 635 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,600 white male and subsequently white female. 636 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:37,320 Partly because the nature of the academy is changing, partly because the, 637 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,520 the, the social sciences and especially 638 00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,520 the humanities, have become highly feminized. 639 00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:47,760 So it is changing in terms of gender, and, 640 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,680 and I think as ASFS and the ASFS officers that, 641 00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:57,960 I've been keeping an eye on over the last, like I would say 5 or 6 years. 642 00:36:58,240 --> 00:37:03,600 I think two movements, really shook all academic institutions, 643 00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:09,000 including ASFS, which is Black Lives Matter and MeToo and both of them. 644 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,000 And this is something again, 645 00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,520 change happens because people demand it. 646 00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:16,080 Okay? 647 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:18,720 there's only so much change 648 00:37:18,720 --> 00:37:22,720 that comes about by the people's goodwill of people who have power. 649 00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:27,600 So, I think that's why Black Lives Matter and MeToo were important in shaking it up. 650 00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:30,880 And the initiatives were much more robust after that. 651 00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,360 This happened, by the way, after my presidency. 652 00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,440 So other people have been doing a much better job at it. 653 00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,440 So one of that, kind of it's partly 654 00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:43,440 this kind of a structural problem. 655 00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:48,120 There is a lot of interesting work happening, 656 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,120 but it is unevenly spread around the world. 657 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:56,280 I'll give you an example that I know in South Asia, a younger two middle aged 658 00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:00,000 women are much more visible in terms of food, work. 659 00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:05,080 Often in some ways, platforms like Instagram are much more, 660 00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:08,120 productive for them. 661 00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,200 And they can engage, they can make a career, 662 00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,360 they can make some money 663 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,360 and, immense amount of thinking. 664 00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,240 And that goes back that goes back to your first question 665 00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:21,040 between public facing work and scholarly work. 666 00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,200 So we will need, to in some ways invite 667 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,600 that kind of work and observation. 668 00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:33,480 And I think, in terms of a figure, I can imagine a figure 669 00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:37,440 who is an Indian woman to be an important 670 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,440 part of the editorial board 671 00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:41,840 of FCS. 672 00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,480 I think that'll help, in terms of familiarity, which will, of course, 673 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,920 means what we have to change the structure of the organization that allows someone, 674 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,880 in India to be an editor of FCS, 675 00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:58,560 which is largely an American and a North American with a certain bit of 676 00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,120 bridging with Europe. 677 00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,000 So we need social movements. 678 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,680 So what I'm saying is we need we needed social movements, 679 00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,560 we needed structural change, and we will need 680 00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:14,880 institutional change to accommodate more involvement. 681 00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:20,000 And I'll give you another example, which is and subsequently I have gone on 682 00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,720 and became editorial collective member in Gastronomica 683 00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:27,040 too one of our biggest challenges was getting, 684 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,200 a Black voice out of Africa. 685 00:39:33,720 --> 00:39:38,400 And we have some voices out of Africa, but they tend to be white. 686 00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,720 And, African theorists have argued 687 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,640 there's a kind of a gentrification of African Studies where better funded 688 00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,880 people from Europe and North America dominate the work. 689 00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,920 So, it's very difficult to get a Black African scholar, 690 00:39:56,720 --> 00:39:59,880 with the time and the energy and the resources, 691 00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:03,600 because African universities and this is specific, let's say, 692 00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:06,600 in South Africa, let's say in Nigeria, let's say in Ghana, 693 00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,960 do not have the resources that North American and European universities have. 694 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:13,600 So here is the big meta question. 695 00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:17,880 The architecture of knowledge production in the world is so unequal, 696 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:22,200 so unfair, you know, racially and by class. 697 00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:26,160 So, in some ways 698 00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,520 we have to work towards making that possible, 699 00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,240 encouraging those voices, inviting them, 700 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:37,240 scaffolding them, helping them, 701 00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,400 and going back to my point, paying them, 702 00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:46,400 okay, we should be paying editors a lot more than we are paying right now. 703 00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:47,200 Okay. 704 00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,880 It should be closer to ideally closer to $40,000 705 00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,720 so that it is possible to do the work, possible to invite people 706 00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,800 from the parts of the world where there are not so many resources. 707 00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,080 So instead of leeching resources to run 708 00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:05,960 FCD, we should provide resources for people 709 00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,320 who have less resources to be able to participate in it. 710 00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:14,840 I think that's a structural problem that needs to be both pursued 711 00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,080 aggressively and in some ways, almost as a molecular level 712 00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:20,800 at the level of the institution. 713 00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:23,120 It doesn't need grand theory. 714 00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:25,440 I think 715 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,440 most of my colleagues I know in ASFS, 716 00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:32,120 want diversity, want, you know, 717 00:41:33,240 --> 00:41:38,440 people whose voices are invisible and not heard to be part to be part of it. 718 00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,760 It's the nature of the field of food studies. 719 00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,680 That is kind of left and left oriented around it. 720 00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,520 But we do not seem to have the research, institutional resources. 721 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,520 So, we need an institution builder 722 00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,840 with a vision of diversity to provide the resources 723 00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,680 necessary to get, I would say, scholars from two areas. 724 00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,880 An African scholar from Africa, 725 00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:06,760 somewhere in Africa, 726 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,840 and a South Asian scholar from somewhere in South Asia. 727 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:11,800 And and why I say that? 728 00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:14,800 Because remember all this a lot of our work is in English, 729 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,760 and these are often Anglophone areas in the world. 730 00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,760 And would that would be possible a lot more possible, 731 00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:25,480 than if in other languages and other journals in other languages 732 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,920 will have other kinds of challenges and other kinds of opportunities. 733 00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:31,800 Although, you're just making me 734 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,080 think about even to expand just to also Spanish 735 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,840 how examples like what kind of amazing global possibilities 736 00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,760 that would open for us too and that that wouldn't be that hard, right. 737 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:45,080 There are plenty Latin Americans. 738 00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:45,720 No, exactly. 739 00:42:45,720 --> 00:42:47,040 Especially Latin America. 740 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,840 And, and and, I think in some ways the opportunities 741 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:54,160 not more there because in some ways, I would say in everyday 742 00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:58,320 life, Spanish is a very important North American language. And, 743 00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,920 and that'll also give us a different kind 744 00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,920 of access to class views of the world 745 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,800 and our different kind of especially in agriculture, you know, 746 00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:12,280 out of the 1 million 747 00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,280 farm workers, how many speak Spanish? 748 00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,080 Out of the 16 million, say, food service workers, how many speak Spanish? 749 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,520 And why can't we hear from them? 750 00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,960 Partly because of resources, including, 751 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:27,640 educational 752 00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,640 resources, including literary resources. 753 00:43:30,720 --> 00:43:36,280 But literally sometimes in terms of capacity to be heard. 754 00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,720 And I would say in some ways with South, along with South Asia, 755 00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,800 probably even more important than South Asia 756 00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:48,360 and sub-Saharan Africa, I would say that could be 757 00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:51,360 a very focused domain of, 758 00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,720 expansion into, the Hispanic world. 759 00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,040 And the Latinx world that allowed, 760 00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:02,400 maybe much more global 761 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,400 in the first instance than the other two. 762 00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:07,560 Excellent point and 763 00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:09,240 good critique. 764 00:44:09,240 --> 00:44:11,600 I want to ask about the relationship to other fields. 765 00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:12,960 And this is it's a long question, 766 00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,960 but it was thoughtfully written, so I'll go ahead and read the whole thing. 767 00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,280 The emergence of food, food studies as a field converged 768 00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:23,280 with the emergence of many other forms of cultural studies. 769 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,240 And at the same time as the establishment 770 00:44:25,240 --> 00:44:28,680 of departments and programs focused on women and gender studies, 771 00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:33,160 African African-American studies, East Asian studies, Latinx studies, etc.. 772 00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,480 To what extent do you see ASFS and the field at large reflecting these 773 00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:41,400 concomitant fields, and how it frames food as a subject of cultural study? 774 00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,440 No. Very good. 775 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,160 In some ways, 776 00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,080 I think there would be no food studies 777 00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:55,800 without the feminist movement before that and its association with women's 778 00:44:55,800 --> 00:45:01,200 studies, there would be no food studies, I think, without peasant studies. 779 00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:04,200 Things like the Journal of Peasant Studies, 780 00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,840 Cornell University's program, Yale University's Agrarian Studies Program. 781 00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,800 And so, 782 00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:14,840 I think food studies 783 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:19,400 and the early founders of food studies take Warren Belasco, you know, 784 00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,240 take, Janet Poppendieck take Jeffrey Sobal and, 785 00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:27,480 Richard Hayes. Right. 786 00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:33,160 You know, if I'm including if AFHV too like Alexandro Bonanno 787 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,160 and all these people, 788 00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:38,840 without the work 789 00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:43,440 done in some ways, rethinking the Academy from the point of view 790 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:47,720 of the various student movements and the civil rights movements 791 00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:53,520 that came in the U.S from the 1950s on, wasn't that 1960s and substantially 792 00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,640 transformed, the universe as a particular 793 00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:00,080 kind of from a very conservative, place, 794 00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,120 to, in some ways opening up dimensions and domains of it. 795 00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:05,840 But there's a difference also on 796 00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:08,520 most of that civil 797 00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,520 post civil rights and post post-civil rights work. 798 00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,240 And I'm including, 799 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:18,320 the women's movement in it, which is partly a reaction 800 00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,560 to the masculinity of the some of the other movements. 801 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,680 Is, kind of an attention to, 802 00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,320 oppressed subject women, 803 00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,840 gender, African-American, Latinx, etc. 804 00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:39,800 food studies, though coming out of that dynamic is a lot more object oriented. 805 00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:44,520 So in that sense, food studies tends to be a little more like cinema studies, 806 00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,560 a little more like performance studies. 807 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:51,040 Again, I think those are kind of useful analogies, especially for someone 808 00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:55,000 sitting like me in NYU, which had a robust performance studies 809 00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,000 program and a robust cinema studies program. 810 00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,040 So, it will be slightly different from a subject 811 00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,720 oriented to an object oriented world, 812 00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:09,360 which is still driven by left liberal social democratic politics 813 00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,080 in some ways. 814 00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:15,720 So, I think there is the genealogy is clearly 815 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:20,360 from paying attention to excluded oppressed subjects, 816 00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,920 in this case, African American, women, and peasants from the global South. 817 00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,960 Would be I mean, think of, 818 00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:30,640 there would be probably no, ASFS 819 00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,640 without rural sociology at Cornell in 820 00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:37,320 in some of the land grant universities. 821 00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:43,400 And that was kind of a basically a critique of what had been, circumvented 822 00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,480 what had been destroyed in Europe and in North and South America. 823 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,440 But in fact, today still dominates in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. 824 00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:55,440 These are largely peasant economies where more than 50% of the people are 825 00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:57,120 involved in it. 826 00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:00,000 So I think, that subject 827 00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,240 orientation to this object orientation 828 00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,400 is there is a bit of a tension, between the two. 829 00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,880 And I think a productive tension. 830 00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,240 And it will also shapes it in slightly 831 00:48:12,240 --> 00:48:16,160 different ways than, say, women's studies got shaped. 832 00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:20,680 And, African American studies or black studies a got, got shape 833 00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,880 and and that for me is interesting how 834 00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:28,720 what role will food studies play and what role does it play 835 00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:33,840 between these subject oriented fields and these object oriented fields? 836 00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,280 With attention to the subaltern subject? 837 00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:41,600 So interesting. 838 00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,600 And that leads really well, I think, into these questions about what 839 00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,600 what's next for food studies for ASFS. 840 00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:50,880 What are your hopes for food studies 841 00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,880 in the next, say, 40 years? 842 00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:55,720 40 years? 843 00:48:55,720 --> 00:48:56,600 That's what they're asking. 844 00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,160 I think this must be our 40th anniversary. 845 00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:00,000 Oh, that's true. 846 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:01,080 That's true for 40 years. 847 00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,360 Yes, that's true 40 years. 848 00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,080 Given the current catastrophic global crisis, 849 00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,240 I don't know how we come out at the other end 850 00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:11,440 exactly. 851 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,520 But a couple of things are very important. 852 00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:14,640 One way or the other. 853 00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,640 Either that the circumstances are going to beat us, 854 00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:21,160 or we are going to try to find a way to live in the world. 855 00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:26,640 And and most importantly, of course, the ecological, challenges, 856 00:49:27,720 --> 00:49:29,040 global climate change. 857 00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:31,560 It's catastrophic, 858 00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,560 a pressure on especially the poor, 859 00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,520 and anything that leads to the second point, which is, 860 00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,480 which to pay attention, 861 00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,600 to, not to just haute cuisine and, 862 00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,200 food and film, which is fine. 863 00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:55,560 But pay attention to the needs and demands of subaltern subjects. 864 00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,200 And which links to our previous point of, 865 00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,720 discussion, which is intranational migrants 866 00:50:02,720 --> 00:50:05,720 because most migrants climate, 867 00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:09,120 climate change, adverse climate change 868 00:50:09,720 --> 00:50:11,640 will drive more people away 869 00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:14,760 from their land, smallholder, land, 870 00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:16,800 property. 871 00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,800 And they are mostly moving within countries. 872 00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,520 So food studies has to become much more robust 873 00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:29,840 in engaging with the nation state, as kind of from a methodological point 874 00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,760 of view, epistemological challenge it lot more comparative work. 875 00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,360 How much compared to how many comparative work, for instance, can you think about, 876 00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:40,720 about what's happening in China and what's happening in India 877 00:50:40,720 --> 00:50:44,200 and what's happening in Nigeria, you know, so it that would be 878 00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,040 that would be the direction 879 00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:50,400 in which we should be moving in some ways strategically. 880 00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:52,680 So, it's partly linked to climate change. 881 00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,520 But it is also again this previous question, we talk about subaltern subjects 882 00:50:57,560 --> 00:50:58,400 and subalternization 883 00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:01,440 of subjects, to climate change. 884 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:04,640 So, I think for me that is kind of the one dimension of it. 885 00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,720 The second dimension of it, which is very important, of course, is 886 00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:13,320 maybe I'll talk about three, just to keep it contained. 887 00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:15,800 The second is social media, 888 00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:19,440 and the mediatization, which is we have always had this question. 889 00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,680 It used to be oral, and then it became print, 890 00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,560 and then oral and print work together. 891 00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:29,920 Then it became in some ways audiovisual to television. 892 00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,960 And it is continues to be audiovisual in the new digital 893 00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,240 platform and architecture of the platform economy 894 00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:42,000 and the difference between many of those and the new formats, and we know to great 895 00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:45,000 risk to us are run by private capital 896 00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:48,960 and, massive accumulation of capital, 897 00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:51,200 from Instagram, 898 00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,200 Facebook, Meta, TikTok, etc.. 899 00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,480 So, engage and and this goes back to your question 900 00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:01,080 of inside the academy than outside the academy, 901 00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:02,520 if you're going to socially engage, 902 00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,520 will have to deal with these tools of mediation. 903 00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:09,000 And like we did with print and radio 904 00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,000 and television, we are now dealing with digital media. 905 00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:14,880 So, more thinking and or more working. 906 00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,960 The relationship between research content and platform 907 00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:22,040 is going to become much more acute. 908 00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,440 And the third thing, 909 00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,440 again, the current crisis is an acute one. 910 00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:32,960 It is what kind of a university is going to survive in the world, 911 00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:35,400 and specifically in North America, 912 00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:39,080 because ASFS is a North American institution. 913 00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:43,080 How much autonomy what we have seen is, in fact, 914 00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,200 my experience in India, my experience with friends in Turkey 915 00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:50,240 is that authoritarian states crush the university. 916 00:52:50,240 --> 00:52:54,880 In India it was JNU, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Turkey. 917 00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:59,040 Most of my friends lost their jobs, up to the level of the dean. 918 00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,240 And we are seeing that that fight, taken 919 00:53:02,240 --> 00:53:06,480 to the American university and American universities have gotten fat 920 00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:09,200 and lazy, 921 00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,400 because they haven't had to to, 922 00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,400 kind of had to fight for their survival. 923 00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:17,440 So, we will see what there are about 4000 924 00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,560 degree granting institutions in North America. 925 00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:24,920 And they have been under pressure because United States has always had 926 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:30,320 more colleges than it can economically, sustainable colleges. 927 00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,280 So they have always depended on international student and now a lot more. 928 00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:35,280 I'm at NYU. 929 00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:38,280 NYU is one of the largest 930 00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:39,800 institutions 931 00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,880 with one of the largest Indian and Chinese students 932 00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:44,160 international students. 933 00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,440 So, what is going to be the architecture of the world 934 00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,920 in terms of geopolitics, which is can students travel? 935 00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,440 Can students get F-1 visas? 936 00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,840 Can people get H-1b visas? 937 00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:58,200 Can people like me, teach in a place, 938 00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:01,800 and in some ways not be citizen? 939 00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:07,120 So, all those questions are largely partly geostrategic questions. 940 00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:11,480 And as my Professors Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi used to point out, 941 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,320 that we are in the middle of the next transition, 942 00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:19,480 when we move from the Italian city states to the Dutch, from the Dutch 943 00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:22,920 to the English to the English to the American, from the American 944 00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:27,240 we are clearly moving to a Pacific world economy and a Chinese world 945 00:54:27,240 --> 00:54:29,360 economy and part of the Sino-sphere. 946 00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:32,400 So, that is going to get played out, which is 947 00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,440 what kind of an institution 948 00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:40,440 is going to be the university? And how close is going to be its, 949 00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:43,920 a relationship to the state, 950 00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:49,360 and in what ways will that be an asset and in what ways will that be a liability? 951 00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,800 I'll give you an I'll end with this. 952 00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,800 One way the American University has a massively benefited 953 00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:00,480 from the 1950s onward from federal scientific grantmaking. 954 00:55:00,720 --> 00:55:02,680 There will be almost no research, 955 00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:05,720 at an American university without federal grant making. 956 00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:09,760 But that has also, privatized these grants and, 957 00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,320 and, and intellectual property, which are highly restrictive, 958 00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,600 rarely now for the common good, but much more for profitability. 959 00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:18,480 Okay. 960 00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:22,440 So, as the American universities relationship 961 00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:26,360 with the state changes and maybe the current, 962 00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:32,160 crisis is a temporary crisis, it goes away in 4 to 8 years. 963 00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,480 I doubt it. 964 00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:36,880 It is most probably a long term crisis. 965 00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:40,200 And the question is, what are the resources 966 00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:42,040 and what kind of a university? 967 00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:44,760 And I see the kind of hope in it. 968 00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:48,480 Maybe the university will return much more to the Commons, 969 00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:52,880 to engaging with the popular and with the population, 970 00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:57,520 rather than only focusing on very expensive research 971 00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:03,120 funded by the American government, hence always tend to be part of the military 972 00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:09,400 industrial complex, part of biopolitics, of managing populations. 973 00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:10,080 Okay. 974 00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:13,800 So I think it's kind of it's a crisis, it's in danger. 975 00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,120 But in some ways it might also open up the possibility 976 00:56:18,240 --> 00:56:22,200 where the American university especially think about land grant universities 977 00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:28,320 who had a very important responsibility of producing research for the commons 978 00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:33,120 and not, trapping it, within intellectual property regimes that are 979 00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:37,200 highly restrictive and profit seeking, rather than seeking the common good. 980 00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:42,680 Maybe there is a 10% chance that the American University will again 981 00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:47,080 focus on the common good, rather than its huge endowments. 982 00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:51,840 At the top of the pyramid and precarity at the bottom of the pyramid. 983 00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:56,040 I just want to 984 00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:59,120 bottle that answer and, like, put it somewhere like that 985 00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:02,240 was I, because it's all the things that I've been thinking about it. 986 00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:05,240 Well, and trying to think about, 987 00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:07,200 I was going to ask about. 988 00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:11,520 So the question here is about the role of ASFS in the production of monographs, 989 00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,520 journals, edited collections, digital projects, public facing projects. 990 00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:19,600 But I want to in I want to turn that back on what 991 00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,320 you just talked about regarding the crisis that higher education is facing, 992 00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:28,560 what do you think is the role or place of ASFS? 993 00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:32,480 And I know it's one of those like it's like, you know, we can't make predictions. 994 00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:36,520 But how do we position 995 00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:41,480 ourselves to survive this changing moment? 996 00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,200 Is I mean, maybe there's nothing we can do. 997 00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:50,040 Are there things that you can you can see that, ASFS can do in 998 00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:51,960 light of what we're facing? 999 00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,000 I mean, existential threats to higher education and and who knows 1000 00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:56,160 what comes next? 1001 00:57:56,160 --> 00:58:00,520 How do we want to be in this new world that is emerging. 1002 00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:02,280 I think, twofold, 1003 00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:05,480 the advantage of people in 1004 00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:09,080 ASFS is most of us have been craft workers. 1005 00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:14,320 So, we are we are not dependent on massive grants, either. 1006 00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:16,880 Agro-industrial grads because they are mostly 1007 00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:19,880 our work is as critique of the agro- industrial system. 1008 00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:23,440 And the state has less vested interest on it. 1009 00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:25,520 So, in some ways it is protective of us. 1010 00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:29,520 The crisis of the, agro- industrial research, 1011 00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,520 military research, with intellectual property claims, etc. 1012 00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:37,880 is one dimension of it that I think in some ways it's like being, 1013 00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,400 I think the metaphor is, ants. 1014 00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:45,840 In a world of elephants, we are protected partly because we are too small, 1015 00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:48,960 and we have mostly have been craft workers. 1016 00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:52,080 Almost none of my work has depended on large, large grants. 1017 00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:55,440 But then the question is, 1018 00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,440 how do we use it to strengthen, 1019 00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,440 our relationship here with the commons, and the commons, 1020 00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:07,040 not the food, not only the food commons, but the intellectual commons. 1021 00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:07,640 Okay. 1022 00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,600 For me, it has been, for instance, 1023 00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:13,320 I use my Instagram account 1024 00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:17,160 to keep myself familiar with lots of new interesting work, 1025 00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:22,560 that is happening in the Indian publics, sphere that is relatively open. 1026 00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:24,640 And there is, of course, a lot of the 1027 00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:27,480 I don't want to be naive also about that platform. 1028 00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:31,960 There's also a lot of self-promotion and, and endless, 1029 00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:35,760 preening and, unwinding about the world. 1030 00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:39,800 But I think we will have to, in some ways build bridges 1031 00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:44,000 with other ways, other locations, other institutional locations, 1032 00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:49,840 and maybe work towards more, in some ways, public private partnerships. 1033 00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:55,440 So, for instance, I would say the way we build roads and sidewalks, we should be 1034 00:59:55,440 --> 01:00:00,600 building a digital infrastructure that is public, publicly owned. 1035 01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,040 It's complex, but it's possible to, 1036 01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:08,760 nurse and nurture these commons platforms, 1037 01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:12,880 in the Commons and participate in it, contribute to it. 1038 01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:16,760 So, if we if we withdraw totally from it, these things will not work. 1039 01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:21,080 So we'll have to find modes of participating like we already do. 1040 01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:24,000 Think about your question and what we talked about. 1041 01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:25,120 The journal. 1042 01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:30,360 The journal is a particular kind of a common platform with in fact, FCS, 1043 01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:35,520 FCS is it's a very relatively cheap journal compared to lots of others. 1044 01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:39,520 I think the membership now is at 100 bucks, pretty close to $100. 1045 01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:41,760 Not free. 1046 01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:44,920 Not that expensive compared to a lot of other organizations. 1047 01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:46,680 It is good to keep it that way. 1048 01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:50,880 It is good to start building bridges with people 1049 01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:54,920 who are working outside the academy, outside North America. 1050 01:00:55,680 --> 01:01:01,280 But serious thinking, serious writing, performance art work, 1051 01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:03,680 comic book work. 1052 01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:07,480 So, in some ways, not just words, but also other forms. 1053 01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:10,480 So I have, for instance, started encouraging my students. 1054 01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:15,080 They can use any platform to make the same arguments in my food 1055 01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:18,720 advocacy work in, in, in my class on, 1056 01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:21,880 on South Asian food, my class on 1057 01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:23,640 Indian Ocean food. 1058 01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,160 So one of my, students, for instance, 1059 01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:29,640 is writing a cookbook, but doing all the drawing by hand. 1060 01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:35,160 And so finding these ways to think about hybrid products 1061 01:01:35,400 --> 01:01:41,160 that are not purely just words on a page, 8000 words on a page. 1062 01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:45,320 Maybe we start writing 2000 word pieces, 4000 words 1063 01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:49,800 pieces more drawing, more visible material, more visual material, 1064 01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:53,520 more visually engaging material, and find platforms 1065 01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:56,720 that are not so much focused on, 1066 01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:00,040 constricted intellectual property claims 1067 01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:03,600 rather than sharing like in some ways, the metaphor there is food. 1068 01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:07,800 Any dish I make has already been made by someone, 1069 01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:11,120 and probably thousands of people, if not millions of people. 1070 01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:16,200 Okay, and no one has, kind of an intellectual property claim on it. 1071 01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:21,000 I think more of our writing should look like more of our cooking. 1072 01:02:25,800 --> 01:02:27,960 It would be a really nice thought to land on, 1073 01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,920 but let me see if there's anything that we haven't talked about 1074 01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:34,000 that you want to touch on? Any questions? 1075 01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:37,000 I didn't ask? Stories you really want to tell? 1076 01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:43,040 I think we have covered a lot here. 1077 01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:45,600 Thank you for kind of 1078 01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:48,600 provoking me in the right way. 1079 01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:50,320 I'm glad. I'm glad. 1080 01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:52,200 I was worried looking at this list of questions. 1081 01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:53,680 I was like, oh, no, I can't do. 1082 01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:56,840 But I feel like we have actually touched on even the ones that I didn't ask you. 1083 01:02:56,840 --> 01:03:00,240 And you mentioned you answered in the course of of answering other ones. 1084 01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:05,800 Is there anything else about ASFS that you wanted to share? 1085 01:03:05,800 --> 01:03:10,640 Either either our past or future that you want to get on on record? 1086 01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:14,040 I would just say that ASFS was crucial to me. 1087 01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:16,720 Someone like 1088 01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:20,160 me who started from outside, though, trained in a discipline, 1089 01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:23,600 outside the discipline, outside the research university, 1090 01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:26,960 and then in some ways provided the me 1091 01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:29,960 the pathway to get back into it. 1092 01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:34,280 And I don't I doubt if I would have managed to do it without ASFS. 1093 01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:37,360 So it was a very crucial institution. 1094 01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:40,600 And of course, no institution is an institution without the people in it 1095 01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:45,880 with a particular kind of people with left liberal social democratic politics 1096 01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:49,560 that were engaged drew me in generous, 1097 01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:55,080 scaffolding, cultivating someone like me 1098 01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:58,920 who can sometimes be obnoxious and loudmouthed about things, 1099 01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:04,440 be generous and kind and forgiving, and yet also providing a ramp up. 1100 01:04:04,720 --> 01:04:07,720 And I think ASFS was crucial. 1101 01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:10,320 And the journal Food, Culture and Society is crucial, 1102 01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:13,080 to constituting 1103 01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:17,440 a field of knowledge without excessive boundary work. 1104 01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:22,160 That's always the problem of a field of knowledge is the cost of entering. 1105 01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:26,240 It is so high only a few people can do that. 1106 01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,280 And ASFS's history and it's nature 1107 01:04:29,280 --> 01:04:32,800 of multidisciplinary and it's object orientation. 1108 01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:38,200 And subject orientation has provided kind of an opening both to the world 1109 01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:41,840 and to, students 1110 01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,840 and to folks outside the academic world, 1111 01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,200 as and scaffolded knowledge production 1112 01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:54,480 in a more democratic, more open ended, more productive way, 1113 01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:57,560 than, any other organization 1114 01:04:57,560 --> 01:05:00,560 I have been engaged with. 1115 01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:01,760 I absolutely agree. 1116 01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:06,720 I think I see true collegiality at ASFS in a way that no other 1117 01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:10,440 academic organization or institution I've ever been exposed to has. 1118 01:05:11,000 --> 01:05:13,400 Absolutely. 1119 01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,400 We're so great. 1120 01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:18,080 All right. 1121 01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:20,400 Well, I, I think I think that's it. 1122 01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:23,280 I think I can probably stop recording. 1123 01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:24,920 All right. Let's do that. Thank you.