Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology

Photo of Professor Harry G West

Professor Harry G West

Professor of Anthropology, Director of Research

H.G.West@exeter.ac.uk

Lazenby House 1.02

Overview

I am a socio-cultural anthropologist with expertise in political anthropology and the anthropology of food, farming and agrarian society. I have conducted research in Africa, as well as in Europe and North America. I am currently working on food, heritage and memory, with a focus on artisan cheesemaking.

I am a Professor of Anthropology, and I convene the Masters in Food Studies.

I am also Co-Director of the Centre for Rural Policy Research, and Lead of Exeter Food: A University of Exeter Research Network.

Office hours: 13:00-14:00 Tuesdays and Fridays during teaching terms; may be in person or via Teams; please email in advance to make an appointment.

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Research

Between 1991 and 2005, I carried out research in the northern Mozambican district of Mueda, where nationalist guerrillas based themselves during the anti-colonial war (1964-1974). As part of this project, I studied how various social groups experienced, and coped with, violence during and after the war for independence. At the same time, I studied how colonialism and revolutionary socialism reconfigured the institutions of local authority, and, more recently, how post-socialist reforms fostered a “revival of tradition” in rural Mozambique. My published works on Mozambique detail how neo-liberal reformers conceived of “traditional authorities” and “traditional healers” as partners in the project of decentralized democratic governance, notwithstanding the fact that the power exercised by these figures is understood by Mueda residents to derive from their knowledge of sorcery. My first book, Kupilikula: Governance and the Invisible Realm in Mozambique, was first-runner-up for the African Studies Association (USA)’s Melville J. Herskovits Award in 2006, and won the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology in 2007. My second book, Ethnographic Sorcery, was first-runner-up for the Society for Humanistic Anthropology’s Victor Turner Prize in 2008. My more recent research is in the anthropology of food. I have focused on artisan cheese, the discourse of “terroir,” and the global market niche in “heritage foods.” I am particularly interested in how cheesemakers have preserved and/or transformed cheesemaking techniques while navigating a changing marketplace, as well as how they have presented themselves, their locales of production, and their productive traditions to consumers new and old. I am also interested in how engagement with food—from making food, to sharing it and eating it—affords opportunities for people to remember, including the acquisition of memories of things they have not themselves directly experienced. My most recent book is entitled Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, and is co-edited with Nuno Domingos and José Manuel Sobral. I serve on the editorial boards of: Food, Culture and Society; and The Graduate Journal of Food Studies. I also serve on the steering group of Food Exeter (http://www.exeterfoodnetwork.org.uk).

Research group links

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Supervision

I have supervised doctoral students working in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe in the fields of political anthropology and the anthropology of food.

Research students

I am currently supervising the following doctoral researchers:

William Jaggard: The contradiction of Britain's chillies: how the experience and perception of British-grown chillies unsettles subjective identity and intersubjective relations for its consumers and producers in South-West England

Jill Lidgey: The role and future of town markets in the 21st Century

Anna Seecharan (ESRC-funded): Food knowledge in migratory bodies: an embodied approach to taste/smell memories through time and space 

Alessandro Guglielmo: Mutual Metabolisms: Land, Food and More-than-human Bodies in Rural Sardinia (Università degli Studi di Milano)

Giulia Nicolini: Eating seaweed in the U.K.: understanding how culture intersects with the environmental sustainability of food

Nina Serbedzija: Farming heritage: Native breed 'revitalisation' in Istria and South West England

Recently finished PhDs:

Celia Plender (ESRC-funded): The Food Co-operative Imaginary: Negotiating politics, aid and care in Austerity Britain

Tridibesh Dey (University of Exeter International Excellence PhD Scholarship) : Re-assembling molecules and societies: ethnographies of plastics from India (2nd supervisor)

Eimear McLoughlin (ESRC-funded): An ethnography of animal consumption in Denmark

Jed Hilton The Chef as Activist: the changing role and social engagement of contemporary chefs

Jessica Fagin (ESRC-funded): Border hierarchies in England for humans, sheep and disease in “conventional” and halal sheep slaughter

Megan Larmer: Hope against hope: diverging values and the reconfiguration of relationships in the ‘food movement’ 

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1993 | 1992 |

2022

  • Wilkinson T, Nye C, Lobley M, Clappison A, Goodwin A, Hilton J, West H, Thompson S, MacQueen G, Fogerty M. (2022) Public Procurement of Food in the South West Region: opportunites and barriers to relocalising food supply, Centre for Rural Policy Research, University of Exeter.

2021

  • West HG. (2021) Terroir Products: A Movable Heritage Feast?, Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, volume 103, no. 1, pages 1-27, DOI:10.1007/s41130-021-00150-2.
  • West HG. (2021) Entre Dois Impérios: Uma Leitura de Cultura Popular e Império, Cultura Popular e Império: As Lutas pela Conquista do Consumo Cultural em Portugal e nas suas Colónias, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 673-643.
  • West HG. (2021) Vozes Duas Vezes Silenciadas: Traição e Lamentos no Período Final do Colonialismo in Moçambique, Sobre Violência: História, Quotidiano e Política, Teodolito, 233-267.

2020

2019

  • West HG. (2019) We Are Who We Eat With: Food, Distinction and Commensality, Politics of Food, Delfina Foundation and Sternberg Press, 132-143.
  • West HG. (2019) Contribution to "Compiled Letters to a Young Scholar", eds. Krishnendu Ray and Amy Trubek, Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, volume 19 (2), pages 1-5.
  • West HG. (2019) Savoring Decay: Cheese, Heritage, and the Allure of Imminent Dissolution, Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, volume 19 (3), pages 47-59.

2016

  • Das M, Plender C, West HG. (2016) Stichelton, The Oxford Companion to Cheese, Oxford University Press, 680-680.
  • West HG, Domingos N. (2016) A Gourmetização da Comida da Pobreza: O Presidium Slow Food do Queijo Serpa, O Espectro da Pobreza: História, Cultura e Política em Portugal no Século XX, Mundos Sociais, 173-205.
  • Molinos Gordo A, West HG. (2016) What a Farmer’s Resume Looks Like. The Forager 7.
  • West HG. (2016) Memories are Made of Molasses, Financial Times Weekend Magazine, no. 23 September, pages 43-43.
  • West HG. (2016) Artisanal Foods and the Cultural Economy: Perspectives on Craft, Heritage, Authenticity and Reconnection, The Handbook of Food and Anthropology, Bloomsbury Publishing, 406-434, DOI:10.5040/9781474298407.0029.

2015

  • West HG, Plender C. (2015) An Interview with James C. Scott, Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, volume 15, no. 3, pages 1-8.

2014

  • West HG. (2014) A Review of The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America (Heather Paxson), Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, volume 19, no. 4, pages 882-914.
  • West HG. (2014) Poder e a Paisagem Social em Mudança na Mueda, Moçambique (excerpted from Kupilikula: O Poder e o Invisível em Mueda, Moçambique, Lisboa: Imprensade Ciências Socials, 2009), Cidade e Império: Dinâmicas Coloniais e Reconfiguraçoes Pós-Colonias, Ed. 70, 167-220.
  • West HG. (2014) Bringing it All Back Home: Reconnecting the Country and the City through Heritage Food Tourism in the French Auvergne, Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, Bloomsbury, 73-88, DOI:10.5040/9781350042186.ch-003.
  • Domingos N, Sobral JM, West HG. (2014) Approaching Food and Foodways Between the Country and the City through the Work of Raymond Williams, Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, Bloomsbury, 1-17.
  • West HG. (2014) Afterword: Ethical Food Systems, Between Suspicion and Hope, Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World, University of California Press, 298-304.
  • Grasseni C, Paxson H, Bingen J, Cohen AJ, Freidberg S, West HG. (2014) Introducing a Special Issue on the Reinvention of Food, Gastronomica, volume 14, no. 4, pages 1-6, DOI:10.1525/gfc.2014.14.4.1. [PDF]
  • Domingos N, Sobral JM, West HG, eds.. (2014) Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, Bloomsbury.

2013

  • West HG. (2013) Wrapped and Stuffed: Provocative Misinterpretations on a Theme; and The Audacity of Unwrapping and Rewrapping, Unstuffing and Restuffing, Virtually Everything (Including, Especially, Cheese), Wrapped & Stuffed: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2012, 39-43.
  • West HG. (2013) Thinking Like a Cheese: Towards an Ecological Understanding of the Reproduction of Knowledge in Contemporary Artisan Cheesemaking, Understanding Cultural Transmission in Anthropology: A Critical Synthesis, Berghahn Books, 320-345.
  • West HG. (2013) Appellations and Indications of Origin, Terroir, and the Social Construction and Contestation of Place-Named Foods, The Handbook of Food Research, Bloomsbury, 209-228.

2012

  • Klein JA, Pottier J, West HG. (2012) New Directions in the Anthropology of Food, The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology, Sage, 293-302.
  • West HG. (2012) Je m'appelle....Cheese, Food, Culture and Society, volume 15 (1), pages 8-12.
  • West HG, Domingos N. (2012) Gourmandizing Poverty Food: The Serpa Cheese Slow Food Presidium, Journal of Agrarian Change, volume 12, no. 1, pages 120-143, DOI:10.1111/j.1471-0366.2011.00335.x.

2010

  • West HG. (2010) ‘Govern Yourselves!’: Democracy and Carnage in Northern Mozambique, second edition, Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, Wiley-Blackwell, 644-659.

2009

  • West HG. (2009) Kupilikula: O Poder e o Invisível em Mueda, Moçambique, Impresa de Ciências Sociais.

2008

  • West HG. (2008) Governem-se Vocês Mesmos!, Análise Social, volume 43, pages 347-368.
  • West HG. (2008) ‘Govern Yourselves!’: Democracy and Carnage in Northern Mozambique, Democracy: Anthropological Approaches, School for Advanced Research Press, 97-121.
  • West HG. (2008) From Socialist Chiefs to Postsocialist Cadres: Neotraditional Authority in Neoliberal Mozambique, Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation, Berghahn, 29-43.
  • Raman P, West HG. (2008) Poetries of the Past in a Socialist World Remade, Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation, Berghahn, 1-28.
  • West HG. (2008) Food Fears and Raw-Milk Cheese, Appetite, volume 51, no. 1, pages 25-29, DOI:10.1016/j.appet.2008.02.004.
  • West HG, Raman P, eds.. (2008) Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation, Berghahn Books.

2007

  • West HG. (2007) Ethnographic Sorcery, University of Chicago Press.

2006

  • West HG. (2006) A Review of Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (James Ferguson), Anthropological Quarterly, volume 79, no. 1, pages 153-159.
  • West HG. (2006) Invertendo a Bossa do Camelo. Jorge Dias, a sua Mulher, o seu Intérprete e Eu, 'Portugal não é um Pais Pequeno': Contar o ‘Império’ na Pós-Colonialidade, Livros Cotovia, 141-190.

2005

  • West HG. (2005) Girls with Guns: Narrating the Experience of War of FRELIMO’s ‘Female Detachment, Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement, Berghahn, 105-129.
  • West HG. (2005) Working the Borders to Beneficial Effect: The Not-so-indigenous Knowledge of Not-so-traditional Healers in Northern Mozambique, Borders and Healers: Brokering Therapeutic Resources in Southeast Africa, 21-42.
  • West HG, Luedke T. (2005) Healing Divides: Therapeutic Border Work in Southeast Africa, Borders and Healers: Brokering Therapeutic Resources in Southeast Africa, Indiana University Press, 1-20.
  • Luedke TJ, West HG, eds.. (2005) Borders and Healers: Brokering Therapeutic Resources in Southeast Africa, Indiana University Press.
  • West HG. (2005) Kupilikula: Governance and the Invisible Realm in Mozambique, University of Chicago Press.

2004

2003

  • West HG. (2003) Sorcery and Mozambican Democracy: A Research Proposal, PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review, volume 26, no. 1, pages 119-127.
  • West HG. (2003) A Review of From War to Peace on the Mozambique-Malawi Borderland (Harri Englund), The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, volume 9, no. 2, pages 361-362.
  • West HG. (2003) Tax Receipts, Virgin Mary Medallions, and Party Membership Cards: (In)visible Tokens of Power on the Mueda Plateau, Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order, Duke University Press, 92-124.
  • Sanders DT, West HG. (2003) Power Revealed and Concealed in the New World Order, Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order, Duke University Press, 1-37.
  • West HG. (2003) Voices Twice Silenced: Betrayal and Mourning at Colonialism's End in Mozambique, Anthropological Theory, volume 3, no. 3, pages 339-361, DOI:10.1177/14634996030033006.
  • West HG, Sanders T, eds.. (2003) Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order, Duke University Press.

2002

  • West HG. (2002) A Review of: Makonde (Jesper Kirknæs & Jørn Korn) and of A Host of Devils: The History and Context of the Making of Makonde Spirit Sculpture (Zachary Kingdon), African Arts, volume 35, no. 4, pages 84-86.
  • West HG, Sharpes S. (2002) Dealing with the Devil: Meaning and the Marketplace in Makonde Sculpture, African Arts, volume 35, no. 3, pages 32-39, DOI:10.1162/afar.2002.35.3.32.

2001

2000

1999

1998

  • West HG. (1998) Seeing Like James Scott: A Review of Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (James Scott), PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review, volume 21, no. 2, pages 127-131.
  • West HG. (1998) Traditional Authorities and the Mozambican Transition to Democratic Governance, Africa’s Second Wave of Freedom: Development, Democracy, and Rights, University Press of America, 65-80.
  • West HG. (1998) ‘This Neighbor is Not My Uncle!’: Changing Relations of Power and Authority on the Mueda Plateau, Journal of Southern African Studies, volume 24, no. 1, pages 143-161, DOI:10.1080/03057079808708570.

1997

1996

1993

  • Myers GW, West HG. (1993) Land Tenure Security and State Farm Divestiture in Mozambique: Case Studies in Nhamatanda, Manica and Montepuez Districts, University of Wisconsin, Land Tenure Centre.
  • West HG, Fair JE. (1993) Development Communication and Popular Resistance in Africa: An Examination of the Contest over 'Tradition' and 'Modernity' Through Media, African Studies Review, volume 36, pages 91-114.

1992

  • Myers, Gregory W., West HG, eds.. (1992) Proceedings of the International Workshop on Land Policy in Africa, Maputo, 18th - 20th Feb 1992.
  • West HG, Myers GW. (1992) Legitimidade Política à Nivel Local e Segurança de Posse da Terra em Moçambique, Extra (Maputo), volume 10, pages 34-39.

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Teaching

Modules taught

  • ANT2014 - Cultures: Food
  • ANT2023 - Theory and Methods of Food Preservation
  • ANT3014 - Cultures: Food
  • ANT3023 - Theory and Methods of Food Preservation
  • ANTM003 - Theory and Methods of Food Preservation
  • ANTM004 - Food and Agriculture in Historical Perspective
  • ANTM021 - Food, Body and Society
  • HISM041 - Food and Agriculture in Historical Perspective
  • POLM016 - Food Systems, Alternative Food Networks and Ethical Consumption
  • SOCM021 - Food Systems, Alternative Food Networks and Ethical Consumption
  • SOCM022 - Food, Body and Society
  • SOCM023 - Social Theory
  • SOCM027 - Social Theory
  • SSIM908 - Directed Practical Study: Agriculture and Food
  • SSIM909 - Dissertation in Food Studies

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Biography

Born in the United States, I was raised in a small town with a large university in the Appalachian Mountains in central Pennsylvania. Most of the kids at my school were children of either academics or farmers (my father taught engineering at Penn State University, and my mother taught English as a Second Language in our university community); I would eventually become an academic who conducted research with farmers. For my Bachelor’s degree I went to the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, where I studied Political and Social Thought (with a one-year hiatus doing the General Course in International Relations at the London School of Economics). After short stints in New York (working for the monthly magazine, Africa Report) and in Paris (teaching English in the run up to the formation of the European Union), I returned to study at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, where I obtained an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with a concentration in African Studies. I began fieldwork during the last years of the civil war in Mozambique as a research assistant on a project run by the University of Wisconsin’s Land Tenure Centre, studying what had become of socialist-era state farms during the war and offering recommendations on how to protect the interests of peasant farmers in the post-war, post-socialist era. I continued working in and on Mozambique for 16 years, conducting fieldwork for my doctoral thesis on the relationship between the state and “traditional authorities” in the northern Mozambican Mueda plateau region, and subsequently focusing research on the place of sorcery in conceptions of power in Mueda. During this time, I held research and teaching posts at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia (1997-1998), at the London School of Economics (1998-2000), and at the New School for Social Research in New York (2000-2003). Soon after taking a post at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (which I held from 2003-2016), I began a new research project, focusing on artisan foods and their place within the cultural economy. Between 2005 and 2011, I conducted research with artisan cheese makers and cheese mongers in 13 countries, mostly in Europe, but also in Turkey, Canada and the United States. While at SOAS, I co-founded and directed the SOAS Food Studies Centre, and convened the MA in the Anthropology of Food. I moved to Devon in 2016, taking up a post in the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter. I continue to work on food and cultural heritage, while also studying food and memory.

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