Student paper award for the anthropology of food

Tyffany ChoiWe are happy to announce the winner of the 4th EASA award for a postgraduate student paper in the anthropology of food: Feeding hungry ghosts in Hong Kong: Thinking with food and hauntology by Tyffany Choi (SOAS).

The 5th annual award will open for entries in autumn 2024.

 

 

 

Abstract
This paper journeys into the world of hungry ghosts in Hong Kong, unravelling the complex web of relationships, rituals and narratives that bind together the living and the ghostly. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s concept of SF, the paper practices “thinking[1]with” food as the nexus where social narratives converge. The exploration begins by discussing the hauntological legacy of hunger in Hong Kong, inherited from the city’s experience of famine during WWII. It then studies the grassroots formation of Hungry Ghost Festivals, discussing the practices of uncanny commensality and nonmodern care which have arisen through this tradition. Finally, the paper examines a communal makeshift shrine for the rumoured dead during the 2019 protests, exploring the role of food in sustaining an affective connectivity between the living and the ghostly. Through an analysis of urban legends, rumours, oral history archives, and other ethnographic sources, this study experimentally bridges food anthropology and hauntology to offer insights into the role of food in culture, memory and community in Hong Kong. At its core, this study aims to understand the significance of feeding hungry ghosts, and finds that food is a nexus of (post-)human experience.

Biography
Tyffany Choi conducts anthropological research into social and fictive narratives to find worthier ways of living and relating in the world. Engaging recurrently with posthumanism and interspecies/intersectional feminism, some of her research areas include the myths of hedonism, circular food stories, the consumption of bodies, and multicultural commensality. She holds an MA Anthropology of Food from SOAS and a BA Comparative Literature from UCL, and has won awards for her research dissertations across degrees and fields. In preparation for a PhD, Tyffany works as a food trends researcher and a creative interdisciplinary writer. She also conducts social research projects for charities, local councils and community initiatives. Tyffany lives in London and Hong Kong, and can be contacted with writing commissions and research briefs at .

Previous Awards for a Postgraduate Student Paper in the Anthropology of Food:

3rd award (2021)
2nd award (2020)
1st award (2019)