What did our distant ancestors eat and how did they prepare their food? For the length of a month, experimental archaeologist Diederik Pomstra subjects himself to a rigorous palaeodiet. He is vlogging about his experiences to reach a non-academic audience.

How do women and men living in logging concessions in Solomon Islands experience the impacts of logging during and after logging operations? This project assesses how and why industrial logging affects men and women differently. Using insights from an ethnographic case-study of the logging industry…

A study by a Leiden-Wageningen group shows that present-day humans are biologically poorly equipped to deal with the toxins they are regularly exposed to in smoky environments: compared to earlier hominins, we modern humans are probably even worse off. The study appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution.…

How do ideas concerning the academic study of religion relate to the socio-cultural and political context in which they are developed?

What are the social, cultural, and/or educational consequences and challenges linked to the introduction of the international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology?

International trade plays a critical role in global food security, with global consumption having highly localized environmental impacts.

The global agri-food system plays a critical role in food security and environmental issues.

The Scientific Commission of the Swiss Anthropological Association (SSE-SEG-SAA) convenes once a year a major conference around thematic panels. This year, the annual meeting of the SSE-SEG-SAA addressed the topic of “norms and alternatives”. Prof. dr. Cristina Grasseni and lecturer Janine Prins participated…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

This ethnographic exploration of anticipation published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute draws on fieldwork among people with dementia and their families in the Netherlands.

What invertebrates are available to feed nestlings in an agricultural landscape of varied complexity?

As convener for the EASA Network for the Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity, Jasmijn Rana organized a two-day symposium on Decolonizing European Anthropology. It brought together anthropologists from different European countries and non-European anthropologists working in and on Europe. Discussions…

Between the 30th of January and the 2nd of February 2020 around 250 people took part in the II Polish Food Sovereignty Forum.

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

Natashe Lemos Dekker addresses the experiences of family members of people with dementia as they expressed their sense of gradually losing the person with dementia in the article 'Anticipatory Grief in Dementia: An Ethnographic Study of Loss and Connection' published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychi…

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

Do you want to know more about Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and what it is like to study in Leiden? Come to our online or on campus information events.

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).

Conference, LUCIS 10th annual conference

Advisory Board member Colin Sage shares insights about the Food Citizens? project.

On Friday 4th February 2022 we welcomed in hybrid format (in person and online live streaming) 154 registered participants, of which 97 online, to present the first results of the Food Citizens? ERC Consolidator project.

To maximise your personal development, we ensure tutorials are small-scale and staff members extremely accessible. In year one, you’ll have an average of 12 contact hours, half of which comprise lectures (in English) and the remainder tutorials (optionally Dutch or English).

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

On this page you will find resources developed by the project team, such as bibliographies, reading lists, template case-studies as well as the team's training and seminar activities.

Image from ESOF Forum programme page.

The Food Citizens? team has contributed in the special issue of the ICA journal. The semi-scientific journal of the study association Itiwana of Leiden University's Institute of Cultural Anthropology.

In late May 2019, the Food citizens? team traveled to Poland for a project meeting and team outing. This was made possible by the European Research Council’s support and facilitated networks and knowledge-generation.

Conference, Network event

In January 2020, the team took a break from their respective field sites and travelled back to Leiden to take stock of their research progress and to host its third Advisory Board meeting at their home institution, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden Universit…

On young Muslims seeking to understand their place and make their way in a transformed world.

Research by Leiden University, LUMC and the Public Health Department (GGD Haaglanden) in The Hague has shown that over a quarter of the families in the city who took part in the survey experience some form of food insecurity. Some families have too little money to make a healthy meal or are worried…

How can we organize the food system in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region in a more sustainable and democratic way? Prof. Cristina Grasseni gave a presentation of her work at the Food Council Metropolitan Region Amsterdam.

On the first weekend of June a plot of land in Lutkemeerpolder, West Amsterdam, was occupied in order to host the Food Autonomy Festival. The event was organized in solidarity with local farms to protest against the development of Schiphol airport-oriented business park. Two of our PhD's, Maria Vasile…

Global versus local, democracy versus dictatorship, tradition versus modernisation: such contrasts make it difficult for anthropologists. They look in detail at what really happens and can therefore add some nuance to blueprints and debates, is what Frank Pieke, Professor in Modern China Studies, will…

Violent conflicts and civil wars in Chad impede most rural households' access to food security, agricultural activities and access to essential services such as health care. In her dissertation, Nakar Djindil Syntyche denounces this issue. She obtained her PhD on 24 November.

Microwear and starch grain analysis on experimental and archaeological grinding tools from Central