Penny Van Esterik

Right to food; right to feed; right to be fed. The intersection of women's rights and the right to food

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Womens special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Womens identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a human right requires that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food.

From Marco Polo to McDonald's: Thai cuisine in transition

(1992). From Marco Polo to McDonalds: Thai cuisine in transition. Food and Foodways: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 177-193.

To strengthen and refresh: herbal therapy in Southeast Asia.

Throughout Southeast Asia herbal tonic drinks are a long established part of the health adaptation system of both rural and urban households. A recent study on infant feeding practices in urban poor households revealed a differential use of postpartum herbal tonics in Bangkok, Thailand and Semarang, Indonesia. This paper explores the cultural meaning of this difference between comparable groups of mothers, focussing on the colonial and neocolonial development of the medical systems, the transmission of knowledge about herbal therapies, and how the tonics fit into the food-drug classification system in both countries.

Ways ahead: protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding in the context of HIV

The HIV epidemic coupled with the assumed benefits of infant formula for the children of all HIV-infected mothers have in complex ways changed public ideas about infant feeding and represents a threat to well established breastfeeding practices. In the wake of the confusion that postnatal prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) interventions have created among HIV-infected mothers, infant feeding counsellors and the public at large, it is time to reinstate the principles of the Innocenti Declaration to protect, promote and support breastfeeding in the context of HIV. The challenge that lies ahead is a search for ways to restore the trust in breastfeeding as the normal and safest way to feed an infant. This requires continued research as well as concerted advocacy and action.

Symmetry and Symbolism in Ban Chiang Painted Pottery

This essay examines the relation between symmetry and symbolism in design production, in order to understand the process of creating symbols. The evidence for the argument is a sample of painted pottery vessels from the area of Ban Chiang, northeast Thailand, tentatively dated from the first millenium B.C. The vessels were probably part of a complex burial ritual. The limitations of working with museum collections are discussed, and a cultural interpretation of these designs is defined. In order to construct a culturally appropriate burial urn, an artist must possess certain technological, social, and symbolic knowledge, some of which is also available to the analyst. Although symbolic knowledge is difficult to retrieve, symmetry is a useful constraint which can be defined mathematically, yet be related to symbolism. Certain symmetry classes offer the potential for alternate interpretations by both artist and observer, and are ambiguous. Ambiguous designs permit or encourage representational interpretatio...This essay examines the relation between symmetry and symbolism in design production, in order to understand the process of creating symbols. The evidence for the argument is a sample of painted pottery vessels from the area of Ban Chiang, northeast Thailand, tentatively dated from the first millenium B.C. The vessels were probably part of a complex burial ritual. The limitations of working with museum collections are discussed, and a cultural interpretation of these designs is defined. In order to construct a culturally appropriate burial urn, an artist must possess certain technological, social, and symbolic knowledge, some of which is also available to the analyst. Although symbolic knowledge is difficult to retrieve, symmetry is a useful constraint which can be defined mathematically, yet be related to symbolism. Certain symmetry classes offer the potential for alternate interpretations by both artist and observer, and are ambiguous. Ambiguous designs permit or encourage representational interpretation. Other strategies for increasing the informational content of design systems are discussed.

Beer consumption and Third World nutrition

Abstract The consumption of alcoholic beverages, particularly commercially made beer, is rising rapidly in Third World countries. Yet very little is known about how this affects the nutritional status of those whose intake has increased (adult males) and that of their family members. The situation would appear to contain the potential for severe inequalities in the distribution of resources between those who hold the purse strings and those who do not. For this reason, the increase in sales of alcoholic beverages should be considered worthy of the attention of nutritionists and planners.

From Virtue to Vice: Negotiating Anorexia

The recovered hold anorexia’s key. That’s a new thought, even to them. In interviewing recovered anorexics in Tennessee and Toronto, we heard how their illness still mystifies them. One by one, no one had anything more than guesses about how it had all happened. Yet piecing their stories together revealed two pieces of the puzzle no one had noticed missing: anorexia is an activity disorder that almost always is also a developmental disorder.

Breastfeeding as custom not culture: Cutting meaning down to size (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

13 Richard A. O’Connor and Penny Van Esterik Richard A. O’Connor is Biehl Professor of Anthropology at Sewanee: The University of the South. Penny Van Esterik is Professor of Anthropology at York University, Toronto. This article is developed from a chapter in ‘The dance of nurture: Embodying infant feeding’ (in preparation) by the authors, and builds on the biocultural approach begun in ‘Negotiating anorexia: From virtue to vice’ by the same authors.

Continuities and transformations in Southeast Asian symbolism: a case study from Thailand

Since P. E. de Josselin de Jong first proposed that Southeast Asia could be considered a single ethnological area of study and was criticized for the formulation (1965), few attempts have been made to deal with the continuity of Southeast Asian symbols through time or to speculate on the relation between similar structures in different social, political and ecological contexts. To some extent, this reflects a change in theoretical climate away from studies which rely on diffusionist explanations for the distribution of objects or ideas. Such questions are easily reduced to mere ethnographic description a mapping of the spread of certain objects or symbols throughout Southeast Asia or untestable specula tions on the origin of a particular symbol. Anthropologists may also avoid looking at symbols diachronically by arguing that the meaning of a symbol has been lost through time and it is therefore no longer possible to discover a precise meaning. In past scholarship on Southeast Asia, there is a long tradition of interest in symbolism expressed by scholars from a variety of disciplines. The most significant resources on Southeast Asian symbolism are de tailed studies of particular symbolic domains such as Adams work on Sumba textiles (1969), or Gittingers analysis of the symbolism of Indo nesian textiles (1979). The house has been treated as a symbolic domain by both Cunningham (1964) and Hicks (1976) in Timor, and Turton (1978) and Tambiah ( 1970) in Thailand. On the state level, the architec ture of capital cities, palaces, and pilgrimage sites has been analyzed as a microcosm of cosmologica! order by Heine-Geldern (1956), and Mus (1978). Cultural performances such as Balinese dance dramas (Belo 1949), Javanese theatre (Anderson 1965) and Balinese cock-fights (Geertz 1972), provide further contexts for symbolic expression. These

Anna and the King: Digesting Difference

This paper explores the relationship between food and national identity in ancient Siam and modern Thailand, as represented in the texts and films linked to Anna Leonowens, particularly Anna and the King and The King and I. While the fictional romantic relationship between the Indo-British governess and King Mongkut (Rama IV) has been critically analysed, little attention has been paid to the state banquet organized by the king. In 1860s Siam, state banquets provided an opportunity to demonstrate the civilized status of the Siamese monarch, and hence the kingdom. Developing and building on the concepts of political commensality and culinary colonialism, the paper explores the importance of demonstrating civility through food.This paper explores the relationship between food and national identity in ancient Siam and modern Thailand, as represented in the texts and films linked to Anna Leonowens, particularly Anna and the King and The King and I. While the fictional romantic relationship between the Indo–British governess and King Mongkut (Rama IV) has been critically analysed, little attention has been paid to the state banquet organized by the king. In 1860s Siam, state banquets provided an opportunity to demonstrate the civilized status of the Siamese monarch, and hence the kingdom. Developing and building on the concepts of political commensality and culinary colonialism, the paper explores the importance of demonstrating civility through