Rachel Black

I am off to the AAAs in DC. I will be presenting a paper entitled “Claiming space and growing communities: urban agriculture in Vancouver, Canada” on Wed. Nov. 28 at 4pm as part of a panel on food and agricultural movements.

Photo by Suzanne De Chillo, NY Times

It is really great to see projects like this developing where farms are being encouraged to donate to food banks. There has been too much of a disconnect between farms and cities, particularly when it come to the urban poor. Read on in this article in the New York Times…

In this TED talk video clip, Wade Davis speaks eloquently about the ethnosphere. We really do need to think more about the fragility of cultural diversity and the centrality of anthropology in understanding each other.

Porta Palazzo was like a home away from home to me while I was doing my doctoral fieldwork. Today I returned after 2 years, followed by a group of UNISG students. The magic of  the Porta Palazzo market infected me once more. This is a truly magic place. If you are in Turin, check it out for yourself. This is the largest open-air market in Western Europe. Today was Saturday and we also visited the Balon flea market adjacent the big market (see the above photo of extreme crochet at the balon).

Last night I went with a few students from UNISG to Turin to see the Tupperware film. This documentary charts the history of Tupperware and how it changed many women’s lives throughout the globe. Central to this tale is the unconventional relationship of two unusual charters, Earl Silas Tupper and Brownie Wise. It is a truly amazing story. It was also interesting to see how the spirit and entrepreneurial zeal of Tupperware is embraced and interpreted in Italy. At the end of the film, an Italian Tupperware lady got up and sang one of the songs that demonstrators sing at their rallies and before parties. It was an exceptional anthropological moment.

If you get a chance to see this film, don’t miss it!