Learning to Farm and Cook: Participatory Action Research on Indigenous Edible Heritage

Dr. Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh

Learning to Farm and Cook: Research on Indigenous Edible Heritage

Abstract

This “Farm to Table” participatory action research (PAR) reinforces community-university partnership. Through an examination of this university millet growing project, I consider this movement of learning to farm and cook as a cultural practice, as an indigenous education, and as a display of ethnic identity. It stresses the importance of using cultural knowledge, culinary traditions and agricultural resources to develop indigenous peoples’ ability to exercise and implement their rights to promote their food heritage and sharing economy. My aim is to enhance the visibility of the roles of the traditional indigenous farming and food in the wider field of cultural heritage and indigenous studies. The millet farm is a cultural site in which teaching and learning tribal languages, cultures norms, values, and rituals are encouraged. This talk explicates the ways in which the analysis of cultural meanings and the attention to indigenous knowledge of millet practices are intertwined. Encouraging meaningful participation by all parties, together we explore how agriculture and food turn into edible heritage and become multiple resources for local economic development and education. Our initiative emphasizes indigenous people’s capacity for adaptability, resilience and restoration of traditional agriculture and food use and production in response to modern conditions.

Keywords: Participatory Action Research (PAR), indigenous studies, Taiwan Studies, edible heritage, food and agriculture education

Speaker Bio

Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh has a PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University and teaches in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Culture at National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. She researches material cultures and cultural performances of indigenous peoples. Her research interests include the cultural studies of tourism and food, identity and cultural practices, cross-cultural consumption, travel as acquisition of cultural capital and performance of personal taste, and indigenous festival and food consumption.

* All these events are free to attend and open to members of the public without prior registration.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ch45@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines