Consuming our Pasts

Food as Nature and Culture in Fiji

Abstract

Taking inspiration from post-humanist theory, I frame my work about human life, both past and present, in a way that attempts to avoid the traditional concretized definitions of humanity and culture that envision these subjects as separate from nature or the environment. Archaeologists may benefit from perspectives that envision humanity as only part of a much bigger and richer montage that makes up the world, life, and our interconnected being. This perspective allows us to explore the past in compelling ways. While food-focused archaeologists have long argued that food is much more than sustenance or calories, if we go a step further and envision nature from a perspective that assumes dimensions of a live essence and an active intricate existence, rather than something to be mastered or dominated, our understanding and appreciation of these complex relationships may deepen. The concepts that provide a foundation for my efforts to flesh out these connections are ‘human-nonhuman relationships’ and terroir. Using this framework, and multiple lines of evidence drawn from nearly two decades of field research on the Fiji Islands, I am working to grasp the subtle manner in which human identities, experiences, foodways, and nature connect and co-mingle in the present and the past.