Nir Avieli
Biographic Data
| ID | 199582 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nir Avieli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nir |
| FAMILY NAME | Avieli |
| SIGNATURE | AVIELI N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6575-0756 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Always Ascending (But Sometimes Descending): Striving for the Garden of Eden in the African Hebrew Israelite ‘Village of Peace’
This research explores the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC)’s ongoing bond with the Land of Israel which they see as part of their program for a divinely inspired Edenic lifestyle. Based on long-term ethnographic engagements, our research focuses on community members’ use of a discursive trope that we call ‘ascending-descending’. This terminology, we argue, is both flexible and failure-proof, as it allows the AHIC to present themselves a…
A taste of freedom: In-cell group cooking and culinary redemption in an Israeli prison
The prison's culinary sphere is a vibrant social arena where the institution's power structure and dynamics are exposed, enforced, negotiated, and restructured. In Israel, the practice of cooking inside the prison cells is not officially permitted (or forbidden) but is generally tolerated by the prison staff. People in Israeli prisons form ethnic-based in-cell cooking groups, allot resources, and invest skills, time, and effort in cooking their o…
The rise and demise of Ashkenazi cuisine in Israel/Palestine: The marginalization of the foodways of a hegemonic ethnicity
Food plays a central role in the construction of national and ethnic identities. This article examines the marginalization of Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent) cuisine in Israel/Palestine, despite the dominance and hegemonic status of Ashkenazi identity in Israeli society. By examining the foodways of a ‘hegemonic ethnicity’, we expand upon previous research on ethnic identities in migrant communities. By analyzing the culinary processes of ad…
Imagining communities through friction in the World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, Laos
In the heritage site of Luang Prabang, Laos, international and local stakeholders employ the practices and rhetoric of conservation to constitute and reaffirm their belonging to imagined national communities. By negotiating with each other the preservation of old houses and temple rites, French heritage experts reaffirm the role of France as a universal civilizing power, Laotians validate the status of Laos as pearl of unsullied Buddhism, and Tha…
Recreational cannabis use and identity formation: A collective memory work study
Until quite recently, cannabis was the most widely used illicit drug globally. Using collective memory work, this study focuses on experiences of cannabis use as part of young persons’ deviant leisure repertoire and explores its role in identity formation processes. The study included a group process of analyzing our own memories of early experience of cannabis use, as well as analysis of the group research meetings themselves. Three themes emerg…
Eating religiously: Food and faith in the 21 st century
This, the first article in our co-edited Thematic Issue, “Eating Religiously: Food and Faith in the 21st Century“ introduces Food, Culture and Society readers to the intriguing research questions posed by the volume’s authors, who discussed these with us in a novel Israel Science Foundation-sponsored international conference at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May 2019. We open this Introduction by presenting a contemporary paradox in which …
Food for the body and soul: Veganism, righteous male bodies, and culinary redemption in the Kingdom of Yah
This article grapples with the unlikely combination of veganism, righteous black bodies, and servitude as expressed in the "divine holistic culture" of the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC). Based on our ethnography of how the Community re-scripts strong, virile black male bodies from rough brutes to responsible and righteous patriarchs, we show how the Hebrew Israelites' vegan diet undergirds their Biblically based culture and fuels thei…
Here I can like watermelon”: Culinary redemption among the African Hebrew Israelites
Every May, the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC), a transnational millenarian group with its headquarters in the Israeli desert town of Dimona, celebrates its most important festival, “New World Passover.” Commemorating their exodus from “the land of the great captivity” (the US) to Israel, the colorful, joyful event has a striking culinary feature: a huge pile of several tons of watermelon is set in the park amidst the celebrants, who fe…
Unesco World Heritage Sites: Shared shrines or contested sanctuaries? The case of the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, Laos
This article, based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Luang Prabang, Laos, since 2006, expands the analysis of the conflicts and divergent interpretations regarding non-Western UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We suggest that the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995, may best be understood as ‘shared shrines’ or ‘contested sanctuaries.’ Here, three cosmological perceptions intersect: th…
The politics of authentication in a Unesco World Heritage Site: Luang Prabang, Laos
This article examines the construction of authenticity through vernacular architecture at the World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, Laos. Our findings suggest that the rhetoric of authenticity is part of the larger matrix of knowledge and power that enables UNESCO to impose its world-views on non-Western countries and to create facts on the ground that meet the expectations of western tourists. Based on long-term ethnography, including extended c…
Maasai on the phone: Materiality, tourism, and the extraordinary in Zanzibar
Thousands of Maasai men have been flocking in recent years to the island of Zanzibar to take part in the burgeoning tourism industry. Many are employed as guards and security personnel. Others roam the beaches, selling souvenirs and touting tourist services, while some are involved in sex-tourism. In this article, we show how these men skillfully employ their traditional materiality: red robes, swords, daggers, clubs, beaded sandals and jewelry, …
Slavery food, soul food, salvation food: Veganism and identity in the African Hebrew Israelite Community
This paper reviews the transformation of meaning of food items central to African American fare from symbols of slavery to means of salvation as the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC) live out their Biblically inspired lifestyle and perfect the vegan diet at its core. Although originating in Chicago in the late 1960s, for over 40 years the institutional and residential base of this transnational millenarian community has been in the Israel…
Food, Foodways and Foodscapes: Culture, Community and Consumption in Post-Colonial Singapore
Bread of Shame: Mechanisms of Othering in Soup Kitchens
This article examines processes of othering in seven soup kitchens in Israel through participant observations as a staff-volunteer and as a diner. The empirical study of othering and otherness in relation to poverty is focused mainly on discourse analysis of texts that appeared in the media. This article contributes to this body of knowledge by analyzing the everyday routines, habits, norms, rules, and arrangements of space and time that turn the…
Cooking Cultures: Convergent Histories of Food and Feeling
Las guerras del hummus: Comida local, récord Guinness y gastropolítica palestino-israelí
Por mucho tiempo, judíos y palestinos han estado involucrados en violentos conflictos por territorio, recursos e identidad nacional; sin embargo, comparten una pasión culinaria: el hummus. Este puré de garbanzos machacados, sazonado con tahini y jugo de limón, se encuentra en todos lados dentro de las esferas culinarias públicas y privadas, y es muy popular entre árabes y judíos por igual. En 2008, el hummus se volvió el centro de un acalorado de…
Las guerras del hummus: Comida local, récord Guinness y gastropolítica palestino-israelí
Por mucho tiempo, judíos y palestinos han estado involucrados en violentos conflictos por territorio, recursos e identidad nacional; sin embargo, comparten una pasión culinaria: el hummus. Este puré de garbanzos machacados, sazonado con tahini y jugo de limón, se encuentra en todos lados dentro de las esferas culinarias públicas y privadas, y es muy popular entre árabes y judíos por igual. En 2008, el hummus se volvió el centro de un acalorado de…
The Rise and Fall (?) of Hội An, a Unesco World Heritage Site in Vietnam
The title of UNESCO “World Heritage Site” is a much desired marker of quality tourism. Yet social scientists rarely discuss the designation’s impact on specific locales, the programme’s effectiveness or its negative effects. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the World Heritage Site of Hội An in Vietnam since 1998 permits exploration of the practices, processes and outcomes of achieving World Heritage Site status, as well as of the impact of tha…
Le paradoxe israélien
La cuisine italienne en Israël. Un désir d'Europe au Moyen-Orient
La cuisine italienne est la cuisine préférée des juifs israéliens, juste après la cuisine mizrahi ou « orientale ». Pour en cerner les significations, cet article expose à grands traits les conditions singulières de son arrivée en Israël, où elle possède des particularités pouvant expliquer la très grande popularité des restaurants italiens : abondance des portions, importance des produits laitiers, bon accueil aux familles. La découverte la plus…
Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town
What is ‘Local Food?’ Dynamic culinary heritage in the World Heritage Site of Hoi An, Vietnam
There are some 200 tourist-oriented restaurants in the UNESCO world heritage site of Hoi An (Central Vietnam), all of which regularly feature a ‘Local Specialties’ section on their menus. Some of these dishes listed under this heading, however, are not unique to Hoi An nor to Central Vietnam, while others are of non-Vietnamese origins. Furthermore, many of the town's tourist-oriented restaurants do not prepare these dishes at their kitchens but s…
Grilled Nationalism: Power, Masculinity and Space in Israeli Barbeques
Barbequing meat is the main activity for most Israeli Jews celebrating the nation's Independence Day. It is a ritual without which the festival is incomplete, and beyond which not much is done. Identification with the nation-state is embodied through the consumption of meat that represents processed and refined chunks of Israeliness. But what is the meaning of this ritual and what does al ha'esh ([meat] over fire) stand for? Anthropological theor…
Food and Power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean: Practical Concerns, Theoretical Considerations
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNir AvieliNir Avieli is a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Nir is a cultural anthropologist interested mainly in food and in tourism. His book, Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town, presents a culinary ethnography of the central Vietnamese town of Hoi An. He has conducted further ethnographic research in Thailand, India, S…
Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town
The culinary life of a Vietnamese town
Food in tourism
What is ‘Local Food?’ Dynamic culinary heritage in the World Heritage Site of Hoi An, Vietnam
There are some 200 tourist-oriented restaurants in the UNESCO world heritage site of Hoi An (Central Vietnam), all of which regularly feature a ‘Local Specialties’ section on their menus. Some of these dishes listed under this heading, however, are not unique to Hoi An nor to Central Vietnam, while others are of non-Vietnamese origins. Furthermore, many of the town's tourist-oriented restaurants do not prepare these dishes at their kitchens but s…
The Rise and Fall (?) of Hội An, a Unesco World Heritage Site in Vietnam
The title of UNESCO “World Heritage Site” is a much desired marker of quality tourism. Yet social scientists rarely discuss the designation’s impact on specific locales, the programme’s effectiveness or its negative effects. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the World Heritage Site of Hội An in Vietnam since 1998 permits exploration of the practices, processes and outcomes of achieving World Heritage Site status, as well as of the impact of tha…
Grilled Nationalism: Power, Masculinity and Space in Israeli Barbeques
Barbequing meat is the main activity for most Israeli Jews celebrating the nation's Independence Day. It is a ritual without which the festival is incomplete, and beyond which not much is done. Identification with the nation-state is embodied through the consumption of meat that represents processed and refined chunks of Israeliness. But what is the meaning of this ritual and what does al ha'esh ([meat] over fire) stand for? Anthropological theor…
Roasted pigs and bao dumplings: Festive food and imagined transnational identity in Chinese-Vietnamese festivals
This article explores the ways by which special dishes prepared for the Chinese community festivals in the Vietnamese town of Hoi An negotiate and expand the notions of ethnic identity and place of origin of migrant groups. Although the festivals stress specific regional identities in (Imperial) China, the food consumed in the communal feasts defines much wider scopes of ethnicity and territory. By discussing these alternative scopes and comparin…
Slavery food, soul food, salvation food: Veganism and identity in the African Hebrew Israelite Community
This paper reviews the transformation of meaning of food items central to African American fare from symbols of slavery to means of salvation as the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC) live out their Biblically inspired lifestyle and perfect the vegan diet at its core. Although originating in Chicago in the late 1960s, for over 40 years the institutional and residential base of this transnational millenarian community has been in the Israel…
Food, Foodways and Foodscapes: Culture, Community and Consumption in Post-Colonial Singapore
Vietnamese New Year Rice Cakes: Iconic Festive Dishes and Contested National Identity
Vietnamese banh Tet (New Year rice cakes) are the most prominent culinary icons of the most important Vietnamese festival. This article examines the sociocultural ideas of contemporary Vietnamese national identity expressed by these dishes, and explores the implicit and complex ways by which they take part in developing Vietnamese cultural identity and nationalism. In terms of the Imagined Communities analytical framework, this item serves as an …
Bread of Shame: Mechanisms of Othering in Soup Kitchens
This article examines processes of othering in seven soup kitchens in Israel through participant observations as a staff-volunteer and as a diner. The empirical study of othering and otherness in relation to poverty is focused mainly on discourse analysis of texts that appeared in the media. This article contributes to this body of knowledge by analyzing the everyday routines, habits, norms, rules, and arrangements of space and time that turn the…
Eating religiously: Food and faith in the 21 st century
This, the first article in our co-edited Thematic Issue, “Eating Religiously: Food and Faith in the 21st Century“ introduces Food, Culture and Society readers to the intriguing research questions posed by the volume’s authors, who discussed these with us in a novel Israel Science Foundation-sponsored international conference at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May 2019. We open this Introduction by presenting a contemporary paradox in which …
Here I can like watermelon”: Culinary redemption among the African Hebrew Israelites
Every May, the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC), a transnational millenarian group with its headquarters in the Israeli desert town of Dimona, celebrates its most important festival, “New World Passover.” Commemorating their exodus from “the land of the great captivity” (the US) to Israel, the colorful, joyful event has a striking culinary feature: a huge pile of several tons of watermelon is set in the park amidst the celebrants, who fe…
Recreational cannabis use and identity formation: A collective memory work study
Until quite recently, cannabis was the most widely used illicit drug globally. Using collective memory work, this study focuses on experiences of cannabis use as part of young persons’ deviant leisure repertoire and explores its role in identity formation processes. The study included a group process of analyzing our own memories of early experience of cannabis use, as well as analysis of the group research meetings themselves. Three themes emerg…
Unesco World Heritage Sites: Shared shrines or contested sanctuaries? The case of the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, Laos
This article, based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Luang Prabang, Laos, since 2006, expands the analysis of the conflicts and divergent interpretations regarding non-Western UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We suggest that the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995, may best be understood as ‘shared shrines’ or ‘contested sanctuaries.’ Here, three cosmological perceptions intersect: th…
Food and Power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean: Practical Concerns, Theoretical Considerations
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNir AvieliNir Avieli is a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Nir is a cultural anthropologist interested mainly in food and in tourism. His book, Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town, presents a culinary ethnography of the central Vietnamese town of Hoi An. He has conducted further ethnographic research in Thailand, India, S…
Food for the body and soul: Veganism, righteous male bodies, and culinary redemption in the Kingdom of Yah
This article grapples with the unlikely combination of veganism, righteous black bodies, and servitude as expressed in the "divine holistic culture" of the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC). Based on our ethnography of how the Community re-scripts strong, virile black male bodies from rough brutes to responsible and righteous patriarchs, we show how the Hebrew Israelites' vegan diet undergirds their Biblically based culture and fuels thei…
The politics of authentication in a Unesco World Heritage Site: Luang Prabang, Laos
This article examines the construction of authenticity through vernacular architecture at the World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, Laos. Our findings suggest that the rhetoric of authenticity is part of the larger matrix of knowledge and power that enables UNESCO to impose its world-views on non-Western countries and to create facts on the ground that meet the expectations of western tourists. Based on long-term ethnography, including extended c…
At Christmas We Don't Like Pork, Just Like The MacCabees: Festive Food and Religious Identity at the Protestant Christmas Picnic in Hoi An
Every Christmas, the tiny Protestant community of Hoi An (central Vietnam) congregates and marks the day with a service, a short ceremony and a communal picnic in the church yard. In this article, based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the town since 1998, the author explores the meanings of the culinary features of the event. By analysing the dishes and eating arrangements at the picnic, he shows how differing facets of the participants…
Imagining communities through friction in the World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, Laos
In the heritage site of Luang Prabang, Laos, international and local stakeholders employ the practices and rhetoric of conservation to constitute and reaffirm their belonging to imagined national communities. By negotiating with each other the preservation of old houses and temple rites, French heritage experts reaffirm the role of France as a universal civilizing power, Laotians validate the status of Laos as pearl of unsullied Buddhism, and Tha…
Food in tourism
Roasted pigs and bao dumplings: Festive food and imagined transnational identity in Chinese-Vietnamese festivals
This article explores the ways by which special dishes prepared for the Chinese community festivals in the Vietnamese town of Hoi An negotiate and expand the notions of ethnic identity and place of origin of migrant groups. Although the festivals stress specific regional identities in (Imperial) China, the food consumed in the communal feasts defines much wider scopes of ethnicity and territory. By discussing these alternative scopes and comparin…
Vietnamese New Year Rice Cakes: Iconic Festive Dishes and Contested National Identity
Vietnamese banh Tet (New Year rice cakes) are the most prominent culinary icons of the most important Vietnamese festival. This article examines the sociocultural ideas of contemporary Vietnamese national identity expressed by these dishes, and explores the implicit and complex ways by which they take part in developing Vietnamese cultural identity and nationalism. In terms of the Imagined Communities analytical framework, this item serves as an …
At Christmas We Don't Like Pork, Just Like The MacCabees: Festive Food and Religious Identity at the Protestant Christmas Picnic in Hoi An
Every Christmas, the tiny Protestant community of Hoi An (central Vietnam) congregates and marks the day with a service, a short ceremony and a communal picnic in the church yard. In this article, based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the town since 1998, the author explores the meanings of the culinary features of the event. By analysing the dishes and eating arrangements at the picnic, he shows how differing facets of the participants…
Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town
The culinary life of a Vietnamese town
What is ‘Local Food?’ Dynamic culinary heritage in the World Heritage Site of Hoi An, Vietnam
There are some 200 tourist-oriented restaurants in the UNESCO world heritage site of Hoi An (Central Vietnam), all of which regularly feature a ‘Local Specialties’ section on their menus. Some of these dishes listed under this heading, however, are not unique to Hoi An nor to Central Vietnam, while others are of non-Vietnamese origins. Furthermore, many of the town's tourist-oriented restaurants do not prepare these dishes at their kitchens but s…
Grilled Nationalism: Power, Masculinity and Space in Israeli Barbeques
Barbequing meat is the main activity for most Israeli Jews celebrating the nation's Independence Day. It is a ritual without which the festival is incomplete, and beyond which not much is done. Identification with the nation-state is embodied through the consumption of meat that represents processed and refined chunks of Israeliness. But what is the meaning of this ritual and what does al ha'esh ([meat] over fire) stand for? Anthropological theor…
Food and Power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean: Practical Concerns, Theoretical Considerations
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNir AvieliNir Avieli is a senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Nir is a cultural anthropologist interested mainly in food and in tourism. His book, Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town, presents a culinary ethnography of the central Vietnamese town of Hoi An. He has conducted further ethnographic research in Thailand, India, S…
Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town
Las guerras del hummus: Comida local, récord Guinness y gastropolítica palestino-israelí
Por mucho tiempo, judíos y palestinos han estado involucrados en violentos conflictos por territorio, recursos e identidad nacional; sin embargo, comparten una pasión culinaria: el hummus. Este puré de garbanzos machacados, sazonado con tahini y jugo de limón, se encuentra en todos lados dentro de las esferas culinarias públicas y privadas, y es muy popular entre árabes y judíos por igual. En 2008, el hummus se volvió el centro de un acalorado de…
Las guerras del hummus: Comida local, récord Guinness y gastropolítica palestino-israelí
Por mucho tiempo, judíos y palestinos han estado involucrados en violentos conflictos por territorio, recursos e identidad nacional; sin embargo, comparten una pasión culinaria: el hummus. Este puré de garbanzos machacados, sazonado con tahini y jugo de limón, se encuentra en todos lados dentro de las esferas culinarias públicas y privadas, y es muy popular entre árabes y judíos por igual. En 2008, el hummus se volvió el centro de un acalorado de…
The Rise and Fall (?) of Hội An, a Unesco World Heritage Site in Vietnam
The title of UNESCO “World Heritage Site” is a much desired marker of quality tourism. Yet social scientists rarely discuss the designation’s impact on specific locales, the programme’s effectiveness or its negative effects. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the World Heritage Site of Hội An in Vietnam since 1998 permits exploration of the practices, processes and outcomes of achieving World Heritage Site status, as well as of the impact of tha…
Le paradoxe israélien
La cuisine italienne en Israël. Un désir d'Europe au Moyen-Orient
La cuisine italienne est la cuisine préférée des juifs israéliens, juste après la cuisine mizrahi ou « orientale ». Pour en cerner les significations, cet article expose à grands traits les conditions singulières de son arrivée en Israël, où elle possède des particularités pouvant expliquer la très grande popularité des restaurants italiens : abondance des portions, importance des produits laitiers, bon accueil aux familles. La découverte la plus…
Cooking Cultures: Convergent Histories of Food and Feeling
Slavery food, soul food, salvation food: Veganism and identity in the African Hebrew Israelite Community
This paper reviews the transformation of meaning of food items central to African American fare from symbols of slavery to means of salvation as the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC) live out their Biblically inspired lifestyle and perfect the vegan diet at its core. Although originating in Chicago in the late 1960s, for over 40 years the institutional and residential base of this transnational millenarian community has been in the Israel…
Food, Foodways and Foodscapes: Culture, Community and Consumption in Post-Colonial Singapore
Bread of Shame: Mechanisms of Othering in Soup Kitchens
This article examines processes of othering in seven soup kitchens in Israel through participant observations as a staff-volunteer and as a diner. The empirical study of othering and otherness in relation to poverty is focused mainly on discourse analysis of texts that appeared in the media. This article contributes to this body of knowledge by analyzing the everyday routines, habits, norms, rules, and arrangements of space and time that turn the…
Unesco World Heritage Sites: Shared shrines or contested sanctuaries? The case of the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, Laos
This article, based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Luang Prabang, Laos, since 2006, expands the analysis of the conflicts and divergent interpretations regarding non-Western UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We suggest that the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995, may best be understood as ‘shared shrines’ or ‘contested sanctuaries.’ Here, three cosmological perceptions intersect: th…
The politics of authentication in a Unesco World Heritage Site: Luang Prabang, Laos
This article examines the construction of authenticity through vernacular architecture at the World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, Laos. Our findings suggest that the rhetoric of authenticity is part of the larger matrix of knowledge and power that enables UNESCO to impose its world-views on non-Western countries and to create facts on the ground that meet the expectations of western tourists. Based on long-term ethnography, including extended c…
Maasai on the phone: Materiality, tourism, and the extraordinary in Zanzibar
Thousands of Maasai men have been flocking in recent years to the island of Zanzibar to take part in the burgeoning tourism industry. Many are employed as guards and security personnel. Others roam the beaches, selling souvenirs and touting tourist services, while some are involved in sex-tourism. In this article, we show how these men skillfully employ their traditional materiality: red robes, swords, daggers, clubs, beaded sandals and jewelry, …
Here I can like watermelon”: Culinary redemption among the African Hebrew Israelites
Every May, the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC), a transnational millenarian group with its headquarters in the Israeli desert town of Dimona, celebrates its most important festival, “New World Passover.” Commemorating their exodus from “the land of the great captivity” (the US) to Israel, the colorful, joyful event has a striking culinary feature: a huge pile of several tons of watermelon is set in the park amidst the celebrants, who fe…
Recreational cannabis use and identity formation: A collective memory work study
Until quite recently, cannabis was the most widely used illicit drug globally. Using collective memory work, this study focuses on experiences of cannabis use as part of young persons’ deviant leisure repertoire and explores its role in identity formation processes. The study included a group process of analyzing our own memories of early experience of cannabis use, as well as analysis of the group research meetings themselves. Three themes emerg…
Eating religiously: Food and faith in the 21 st century
This, the first article in our co-edited Thematic Issue, “Eating Religiously: Food and Faith in the 21st Century“ introduces Food, Culture and Society readers to the intriguing research questions posed by the volume’s authors, who discussed these with us in a novel Israel Science Foundation-sponsored international conference at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May 2019. We open this Introduction by presenting a contemporary paradox in which …
Food for the body and soul: Veganism, righteous male bodies, and culinary redemption in the Kingdom of Yah
This article grapples with the unlikely combination of veganism, righteous black bodies, and servitude as expressed in the "divine holistic culture" of the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC). Based on our ethnography of how the Community re-scripts strong, virile black male bodies from rough brutes to responsible and righteous patriarchs, we show how the Hebrew Israelites' vegan diet undergirds their Biblically based culture and fuels thei…
Culinary Culture and Tourism (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Art (13 works) · History (12 works) · Aesthetics (10 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Law (10 works) · History (9 works) · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies (9 works)