Graduate Association for Food Studies Awards

2022 Awards

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our first annual Distinguished Food Studies Doctorate Dissertation and Master’s Thesis Awards!

Doctoral Winner: Jean Tassin
ENS Lyon; East China Normal University, School of Social Development
Revenir à la terre : une sociologie des espaces marchands de l’agroécologie en Chine


Doctoral Runner-up: Nora Castle
University of Warwick, English and Comparative Literary Studies
Food Futures: Food, Foodways, and Environmental Crisis in Contemporary Science Fiction

Doctoral Runner-up: Lindsey Foltz
University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology
Saving Food in Bulgaria: Practicing Food Sovereignty in Everyday Life

Master’s Winner: Danielle Jacques
Boston University, Gastronomy
Rural Voices “at the Margins”: Place and Power in the Emerging Heritage Narratives of Bulgaria’s Food Tourism


Master’s Runner-Up: Julia Fine
University of Cambridge, Centre of South Asian Studies
Ecology and Labour in Bengal’s Salt Industry, 1780-1862

Food Studies Research Talks

In order to celebrate and discuss the rich and diverse research showcased in this year’s stellar texts, we will be throwing an online ceremony on Friday, January 27 (11 AM EST). It will be the occasion for our two winners to present their passionate research.

Our doctoral winner, sociologist Jean Tassin of the École Normale Supérieure Lyon and East China Normal University, will discuss the interplay between different scales of agroecological politics in modern China and how internationalized “grammars” of ecological issues are rethought and recategorized in local peasant movements.

Our Master’s winner, anthropologist Danielle Jacques of Boston University (currently pursuing her PhD at Brandeis University – double congratulations!), will present how actors in rural Bulgaria are actively mobilizing an agrarian past and gastronomic heritage as resources, to strategically produce a desirable pastoral “character of place” for a domestic tourism market.

We hope this online event will be an opportunity to unravel the great depth of these studies and create a fertile exchange between you and the winners! Join our Zoom event here:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96847900585?pwd=VDRkOERaaUQvbUUxZFhoSWNMdlNJdz09

Congratulations again to all those receiving our Distinguished Food Studies Doctorate and Master’s Dissertation Awards!

Look out for our next call for nominations in Fall 2023