Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

The use of food to negotiate status is found in all human societies. Here, for the first time, a single book brings together contributions from different disciplines to investigate, from ethological and anthropological perspectives, behavior that appears to have biological roots such as the tendency to seek status through the medium of food. It explores the limits that our biological heritage places on cultural expressions of such behavior, as well as the multiplicity of ways in which biologically based tendencies can be transformed by culture. Finally, it addresses the impact of status-seeking on nutritional programs in developing countries.

Polly Wiessner and Wulf Schiefenhövel are Senior Research Fellows at the Forschungsstellefür Humanethologie, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.