1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910778403403321

Autore

Holtzman Jon

Titolo

Uncertain tastes [[electronic resource] ] : memory, ambivalence, and the politics of eating in Samburu, northern Kenya / / Jon Holtzman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2009

ISBN

1-282-35995-9

9786612359958

0-520-94482-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (297 p.)

Disciplina

641.30089/965

Soggetti

Samburu (African people) - Food

Samburu (African people) - Domestic animals

Samburu (African people) - Social conditions

Food habits - Kenya - Samburu District

Food preferences - Kenya - Samburu District

Food - Symbolic aspects - Kenya - Samburu District

Culture conflict - Kenya - Samburu District

Social change - Kenya - Samburu District

Samburu District (Kenya) Social conditions

Samburu District (Kenya) Economic conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1. Orientations -- Part 2. Worlds of Food -- Part 3. Histories of Eating -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This richly drawn ethnography of Samburu cattle herders in northern Kenya examines the effects of an epochal shift in their basic diet-from a regimen of milk, meat, and blood to one of purchased agricultural products. In his innovative analysis, Jon Holtzman uses food as a way to contextualize and measure the profound changes occurring in Samburu social and material life. He shows that if Samburu reaction to the new foods is primarily negative-they are referred to disparagingly as "gray food" and "government food"-it is also deeply ambivalent. For example,



the Samburu attribute a host of social maladies to these dietary changes, including selfishness and moral decay. Yet because the new foods save lives during famines, the same individuals also talk of the triumph of reason over an antiquated culture and speak enthusiastically of a better life where there is less struggle to find food. Through detailed analysis of a range of food-centered arenas, Uncertain Tastes argues that the experience of food itself-symbolic, sensuous, social, and material-is intrinsically characterized by multiple and frequently conflicting layers.