Activities 2009 - Mars 2020

Thursday the 28th of November, 2019, 8.30 AM – 5 PM and Jubilee dinner in Stockholm, Sweden.  

We celebrate NAFS’s 10th anniversary with a one-day conference on the relationship between food and social theory. What social theories are fruitful for use in food studies? What recent trends are noticeable? What challenges do food studies pose for social theory and how can insights from food studies contribute to the development of social theory? And perhaps the most challenging question: Does food studies need a theory of its own, and if so, what should be the purpose of it?
For this conference, we welcome contributions that in some way or other comment on the use of theory, especially social theory, in the field of Food studies.

Program - NAFS Jubilee Conference (319 Kb)

Tore Wretman's Day 2019

Monday 25 Nov 2019, 9-18 in Uppsala.

The seminar aims at gathering researchers interested in research related to meal science and gastronomy and to function as a platform
for an active meal science network with a yearly seminar. New and ongoing research is invited to be presented at the seminar, which particularly welcomes abstracts from PhD students and younger researchers.

Invited speakers
Dr Maxime Michaud, Institut Paul Bocuse, Lyon, France
Dr Johan Swahn, Örebro university
Producer Karsten Thurfjell, Swedish Radio, will also take part and describe the development of Swedish gastronomy over time.

Program (435 Kb)

Måltiden, marken, maten och människan

October 17th 2018

NAFS seminar presenting ongoing food and meal research was held in Uppsala.

The overall aim of the seminar was to gather researchers in the field of meal-related research and serve as a platform foran active Swedish meal research network with an annual scientific meeting.

Måltidsakademin conducts this research seminar with the support of Jacob Wallenbergs stiftelse and Gastronomiska Akademien, in cooperation with SLU Future Food, NAFS and Commensality Research Network at Uppsala University.

Måltidsseminarium 17 okt (643 Kb)

Urban Food Studies – The city as a meeting point for tastes, dreams and ideas

On September 21-22 2017

The Nordic Association for Food Studies, NAFS, presented the first academic-business conference. The aim of the conference was to highlight what cityscapes mean for food, eating and the development of food culture in today’s society both historically and pre-historically.

Cities constitute centers of human activities of various kind. This conference emphasizes how food is developed when people come together in cityscapes, including small trading places in early prehistory until the mega-cities of our time. It will be the first AMB conference organized by NAFS – a conference where Academics and

Keynote speakers
NAFS is also proud to present the three keynote speakers: Claude Fischler, professor in sociology, Carolyn Steel, author and architect and Magnus Nilsson, chef at Fäviken restaurant in Sweden.

Claude Fischler
Claude Fischler is a French sociologist and anthropologist,  a senior Investigator at the French National Science Center (CNRS), and a former director of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Contemporary Anthropology in Paris. He is a pioneer in the social scientific study of food and eating and has developed cross-disciplinary approaches to food cultures and their evolution, to eating behaviour, to medical and lay perceptions of the relation of food and health and to the perception of risk. He is the author of many influential books, such as L’Homnivore (1990), a synthesis of the social sciences’ perspective on food and nutrition; Manger (2008, with Estelle Masson), cross-cultural comparative studies on collective views of food and health in European and Western countries; and Selective Eating on The Rise, Meaning and Sense (2015) of «Personal Dietary Requirements ».

Magnus Nilsson
Magnus Nilsson is a chef developing and exploring the New Nordic Cuisine. His restaurant is located in the Swedish sub-alpine area of Jämtland and was in 2016 awarded to be the 41st best restaurant in the world with the motivation: “Unique Scandinavian cuisine that’s worth the pilgrimage”. His cookery book The Nordic Cook Book is an international success and for this work he spent three years researching food, eating and food traditions in the Nordic countries.

Carolyn Steel
Carolyn Steel is an architect, lecturer and writer with a vivid interest in understanding how people live their lives in the city. She is particularly interested in the way cities has evolved due to food networks. How food is included in the buildings of the city: how food is cooked and how the rubbish is taken care of.  In “Hungry City: How Food Shapes our Lives” (2013) she discusses how environmental and health issues surround the eating in the city. She describes how food is key to the 'urban paradox' at the core of civilization, and introduces the concept sitopia (foodplace) as a tool with which to address the dilemmas of 21st century dwelling.

Conference theme – Urban Food Studies
Due to economic, political and cultural power the city has always exerted a strong attraction on people. This is as true for the modern city of today as for its numerous prehistoric predecessors. The center arises when people in the periphery are drawn to it. The city and the countryside are usually considered the exact opposites of each other both as physical entities and as representations of ideas and values. At the same time they are engaged in a highly dynamic relationship where the conception of the city is constituted based upon what the countryside is not and vice versa.

The city is a highly unstable organization defined by a continuous flux of people, goods and ideas who meet and intersect at a particular geographical spot for longer or shorter periods of time. It is a dynamic place characterized by a vivid exchange of ideas and values which is also reflected in urban food culture. Traditionally values associated with city life has spread to the countryside. Today the exchange between the city and the countryside particularly when it comes to food and food practices is also the reversed. Rural life is increasingly being integrated into city life.

Cities were once a marginal phenomenon, today they are the dominant. Since 2008, more people live in the world's urban areas than in rural. Accordingly, urban values and ideals can be said to dominate the “zeitgeist”. And in midst of all this there is food because without constant supply of food the city cannot persist. Hence, the city is highly dependent on rural areas and production of food.

Meeting-place between academics and business representatives NAFS aims at encouraging the exchange of ideas between researchers from various academic disciplines. A second aim is to stimulate enriching conversations as well as future possible collaborations between the world of science and commerce.

Therefore representatives of the food industry and trade are also invited to submit papers. The conference will provide the opportunity to present a limited number of papers from the industry. The purpose of the papers is not to promote specific products but to present studies and findings that are relevant to the topic of the conference and contribute to the understanding of food, meals and eating practices. In return they will be discussed and investigated upon from the point of view of the world of science.

Partnership
The conference is arranged in cooperation with the Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University.

NAFS Krusenberg Conference report, Sep 2017 (1245 Kb)
NAFS academic-business conference 2017 (2236 Kb)

NAFS Conference: Oslo 2016

A NAFS conference was held in Oslo, Norway in 2016. In the documents you will find the program and the abstracts from the conference.

Program NAFS 2016 Oslo - People moving with food (266 Kb)
Abstract book NAFS 2016 (267 Kb)
NAFS Oslo Conference report, Nov 2016 (548 Kb)

NAFS Workshop

November 19, 2015

The NAFS Workshop was held by Stockholm Business School (SBS) at Kräftriket, Stockholm University. The theme was ”Food Culture Carrier of All Times; Children and adolescent’s relations to food and meals”. Some ten NAFS members from Sweden and Norway gathered for a day of discussions that continued in the evening at the restaurant Babette in Stockholm.

Key note speaker was PhD Elisabeth von Essen PhD, Landscape Planning at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden. She made a presentation of her research under the title “Food's role as the existence and relationship in young adults' quest for mental health". For young adults a conscious relationship to food has become increasingly important as a strategy to achieve physical health, well-being and resilience, so-called "Psychological prosperity”. No discussion which focus on the memory of our childhood and how we can remember our history with the help of food, is complete without Marcel Proust, French butter cookies (Madeleines) and tea of lime-tree flowers. Theresa Digerfeldt read the well known lines in French and Swedish from the book during our afternoon Proust tea break.

NAFS Symposium

November 5, 2014

In 2014 NAFS members at Södertörn university arranged a workshop with the title “Indoor, outdoor and in between; Making definitions and space for food, cooking and meals”. Key note speaker was professor Odd Nygård and he addressed the conference with a presentation called “Terroir – A key concept to put more light on local food”.

NAFS Scientific Meeting

January 31 - February 1, 2013

The NAFS scientific meeting was held in Nacka, Stockholm. Meals are not only a social occasion but also a field of research and an opportunity to discuss scientific issues. Sociology professor Alan Warde was invited as key note speaker. Some 30 members attended the two-day conference that also contained a special PhD-student session.

NAFS Focus meeting

February 16, 2012

NAFS held a one-day conference at Stallet in the Nordic Museum located on Djurgården in Stockholm.

NAFS Workshop “Claude and I”

October 7th, 2010

NAFS held a workshop and seminar with the title “Claude and I”. PhD Torbjörn Bildtgård gave an introduction to the thinking and theories of the French sociologist professor Claude Lévi-Strauss’ (1908-2009) with a particular focus on those relevant to the field of food studies -  from “The culinary triangle” to “The origin of table manners”. The seminar took place at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm.