This study investigates the values expressed and implemented through local cereal and cereal-related products such as bread and flour in the alpine region of Valle d’Aosta (north-west Italy), contributing to the existing body of literature on food values. It is based on anthropological fieldwork among people engaging with cereal both professionally and non-professionally (such as bakers, farmers, agronomists and other categories of people involved in the cereal sector) and on theories drawn from food and economic anthropology, anthropological theories of value and literature on social movements. This research aims at understanding the values that inform cereal-related practices in Valle d’Aosta and that precede the relationships its inhabitants generate around cereal. Such values are intended as moral standpoints from which people engaging with cereal organise their action and conceptualise their own understanding of their practices. Values of tradition, community and individual place identity, health, environmental and socio-economic values serve as spectacles through which to grasp the vision that people engaging with cereal in Valle d’Aosta have of society, of the role of the economy, of the relationship between the community and the individual. Ultimately, cereal-related practices, based on a particular conception of the economy which puts into question the neoliberal system, are represented as tools bridging past, present and future, as the past serves as a source of inspiration to bring about a better future and to materialise it into the present, through a deeply moral endeavour.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-189499 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Béthaz, Marzia |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Socialantropologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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