Abstract

In this paper, I argue for the importance of incorporating concerns with the materiality of food in anthropologically oriented studies. Historically, the symbolic and communicative dimensions of foods and eating practices have received greater attention than the substantive matter of food and the ways in which it acts upon both the individual and the social body. Rather than approaching food as a passive substance, it is important that we think about the capacities of foods—as active and key elements within broader relational networks—to generate not only biological effects but public and social ones as well. I develop some of these ideas here and illustrate with several examples drawn from the realm of the late pre-Columbian Andes.

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