Urban Foodways and Communication: Ethnographic Studies in Intangible Cultural Food Heritages Around the World

Embedded in the quest for ways to preserve and promote heritage of any kind and, in particular, food heritage, is an appreciation or a sense of an impending loss of a particular way of life – knowledge, skills set, traditions -- deemed vital to the survival of a culture or community. Foodways places the production, procurement, preparation and sharing or consumption of food at an intersection among culture, tradition, and history. Thus, foodways is an important material and symbolic marker of identity, race and ethnicity, gender, class, ideology and social relations.

Urban Foodways and Communication seeks to enrich our understanding of unique foodways in urban settings around the world as forms of intangible cultural heritage. Each ethnographic case study focuses its analysis on how the featured foodways manifests itself symbolically through and in communication. The book helps advance our knowledge of urban food heritages in order to contribute to their appreciation, preservation, and promotion.

Casey Man Kong Lum, PhD, is Professor of Communication, William Paterson University. A member on the Board of Directors of the Urban Communication Foundation, Casey is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters in urban food cultures, media and culture, intercultural communication and diasporic studies. His book In Search of a Voice explores the role of karaoke singing in the social construction of identity. His authored/edited volume on The Media Ecology Tradition was the winner of the 2006 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics by the Media Ecology Association. He teaches graduate and undergraduate-level courses in media studies, food studies, and intercultural communication.

Marc de Ferrière le Vayer, PhD, is Professor of Modern History at Université François Rabelais de Tours, France. A scholar in food heritage studies well-known around the world and an author of numerous publications, Marc is the Chair Holder of the UNESCO Chair in the Safeguarding and Promotion of Intangible Cultural Food Heritage at the University of Tours since 2011.