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Research_

Australian Food, Society and Culture Network

Connecting food experts across disciplines
This network has been established to allow researchers and policy makers located in Australia who are interested in the social and cultural aspects of food and eating to connect with each other. We hope this network will foster interdisciplinary projects and other research synergies.

About the Australian Food, Society and Culture Network

The Australian Food, Society and Culture Network includes members from around Australia and also links to other related networks both within Australia and in other countries. Members of the network are from a wide range of disciplines, including the humanities and social sciences but also marketing, nutrition, medicine, public health and health policy.

Our members are interested in such topics as health, body weight, gender and sexual identity, the family, agriculture and food provisioning, the cross-cultural dimensions of food and eating, the portrayal of food and cooking in the media, the history of food, indigenous foodways and sustainable food systems.

The network particularly seeks to explore the ways in which food and eating practices can be examined critically and theorised using relevant socio-cultural theoretical perspectives.

The main purposes of the Australian Food, Society and Culture Network are:

  • To serve as a network and forum that facilitates research exchange, collaboration and synergy between researchers in Australia interested in the social and cultural aspects of food and eating across a range of disciplines.
  • To foster international links with similar networks in other countries for research exchange and sharing.
  • To draw from national and international expertise of the Network’s members to inform local and global food policy and practice.

The interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of the network is reflected in several thematic groups representing our current membership's research interests. The thematic groups may meet individually, but the Australian Food, Society and Culture Network organises a meeting once a year in an annual workshop where all the thematic groups can come together to present research and exchange ideas. The thematic groups are:

  • Food and Socioeconomic Disadvantage
  • Families, Relationships and Food
  • Gender, the Body and Food
  • Food and Ethics
  • Methodologies in Food Research
  • Food Production and Supply Chains
  • Food Policy, Politics and Governance
  • Social Histories of Food
  • Mass Media, Commodity Culture and Food
  • Food and Consumption
  • Food and Sensory Experience
  • Food and Health
  • Time in Culinary Culture
  • Food, Race and Class
  • Indigenous Foodways

Our people

Dr Lara Anderson

Professor Rachel Ankeny

Dr Paula Arvela

Associate Professor Cathy Banwell

Associate Professor Kate Barclay

Tara Bates

Professor Louise Baur

Gianna Bonis Profumo

Dr Matteo Bonotti

Dr Sue Booth

Dr Sinead Boylan

Dr Heather Bray

Jennifer Browne

Dr Brigit Busichia

Dr Tania Cammarano

Dr Katherine Carroll

Dr Stacy Carter

Ms Vita Christie

Sandra Clark

Ms Gillian Cohen (Email)

Professor John Coveney

Dr. Jesse Dart

Stephen Derrick

Associate Professor Tim Dewhirst

Dr Isabelle de Solier

Associate Professor Jane Dixon

Kelly Donati

Ms Shauna Downs

Aletia Dundas

Jean Duruz

Dr Graham Ellender

Dr Jodie Ellis

Dr Barbara Evers

Rosalie Fansheel

Ellese Ferdinands

Dr Rick Flowers

Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser

Ms Becky Freeman

Professor Danielle Gallegos

Associate Professor Michael Gard

Professor John Germov

Helen Greenwood

Dr Catie Gressier

Dr Jessica Gunson

Dr Debra Hector

Dr Julie Henderson

Professor Julie Hepworth

Jen Hocking

Bridget Jay

Dr Gabrielle Jenkin

Sophie A. Johnson

Kate Johnston

Jenny Kaldor

Associate Professor Bridget Kelly

Dr Christine Knight

Dr Morag Kobez

Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Lawrence

Dr Deana Leahy

Dr Cecilia Leong-Salobir

Dr Sophie Lewis

Ms Vincy Li

Professor Stewart Lockie

Dr Jessica Loyer

Professor Deborah Lupton

Professor Jan Maree Maher

Associate Professor Alana Mann

Christina Mauceri

Dr Christopher Mayes

Julia McCartan

Dr Julie McIntyre

Dr Darlene McNaughton

Associate Professor Samantha Meyer

Professor Vivienne Moore

Dr Frieda Moran

Associate Professor Barbara Mullan

Connie Musolino

Isabelle Napier

Dr Felicity Newman

Jenny Noble

Dr Christina (Lina) Nope-Williams

Dr Nick Osbaldiston

Professor Christine Parker

Anita Peerson

Rany Pen

Professor Alan Petersen

Dr Michelle Phillipov

Professor Elspeth Probyn

Dr Laura Prosperi

Dr Margaret Raven

Dr Carol Richards

Hannah Rohrlach

Dr Nick Rose

Professor Barbara Santich

Dr Jensen Sass

Dr Lisa Schubert

Dr Gyorgy Scrinis

Clinical Associate Professor Smita Shah

Dr Sian Supski

Dr Elaine Swan

Wakako Takeda

Dr Nicole Tarulevicz

Dr Anne Marie Thow

Professor Wendy Umberger

Professor Paul Ward

Professor Megan Warin

Dr Trevor Webb

Jacqui Webster

Professor Adele Wessel

Yvette Wijnandts

Kim Yow

Dr Tanya Zivkovic

Our events

AFSCN Symposium – Nourishing Futures: Food, Diet, and Health in Times of Crises
  • 15 July 2022, The University of Sydney

This interdisciplinary symposium explores changing food systems, practices, and futures in an age of multiple, overlapping crises. The speakers will investigate new ways of thinking about the relationship between ecology, food, culture, and health in an age of self-devouring growth, when environmental and social inequities are intensifying, and health concerns are amplified by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Keynote: Asking different questions: Leveraging ethnography to nourish people, health promotion and policy, Professor Megan Warin (University of Adelaide).

Download the 2022 Symposium Program (pdf, 708.9KB)

AFSCN Symposium – Data, Diets, Digitalism: Emergent Food Research Methodologies
  • 15 November 2019, The University of Sydney

This one-day symposium examined emergent research methodologies in the study of food, nutrition, and diet. We looked at the ways in which new methodologies to examine food and food cultures have expanded, both with technologies of the digital age that reconfigure systems of food production and production, as well as new sensory (tactile/haptic, visual, olfactory), representational, cultural, and social practices that shape the food citizen. We also examined moving boundaries in the study of food, society, and culture through the lends of foodscape mapping, reflexive research methods, and indigenous/cross-cultural food pedagogies.

Download the 2019 Symposium Program (pdf, 873.5KB)

AFSCN Symposium- Food and Place, Food and Displace
  • 9th November 2018, Flinders University Victoria Square, Adelaide, South Australia

The aim of this one-day symposium was to present and discuss research on the relationships between eating, drinking, place and culture. We looked at the ways in which settings, places and habitats construct opportunities for old and new forms of alimentation and cultural significance. The symposium presented research on the experiences of those who have been, by accident or design, displaced from their foodways. The event included an interactive 'dessert-in-hand' food experience hosted by Post Dining. In the afternoon a workshop was held to discuss the research and actions for the network in 2019.

Download the 2018 Symposium Program (pdf, 383.6KB)

2016 Symposium - Food Paradoxes: Equity, Access and Excess
  • 22 January 2016, The University of Sydney

This one-day symposium examined contemporary politics and paradoxes of food in the context of equity, access and excess. In a world where increasing poverty and disadvantage contribute to hunger and health disparities, we are seeing the systematic collection of surplus food that is re-circulated and distributed through local networks, food charity services and food banks. At the same time social issues like obesity are interpreted as symptomatic of excess and a mismatch between biological and social environments, and over-consumption of readily accessible processed foods. Equity, access and excess are thus nodes of complex cultural systems that contribute to current practices of how we eat and the everyday performances and representations of food politics.

Download the 2016 Symposium Program (pdf, 457.8KB)

2013 Symposium - Food, Gender and the Family
  • 26 July 2013 - University of Sydney

Download the 2013 Symposium Program (pdf, 148.8 KB)

1st Australian Food, Society and Culture Network Workshop
  • 10 December 2012 - University of Sydney

Download the 2012 Symposium Program (pdf, 90KB)

Related links

Co-convenors

Teresa Davis
Dr. Teresa Davis
Academic profile

Sophie Chao
Dr. Sophie Chao
Academic profile

Contact us

Please contact our co-convenors Teresa and Sophie via: