Respecting the flesh

Anyone who follows the news in Canada will no doubt have heard the recent flurry of news/uproar/vilification/praise over Governor General Michaëlle Jean's recent consumption of seal at an Inuit ceremony in Rankin Inlet. For those of you who have had your fingers in your ears and your eyes closed while yelling "lalalalalalalalalala" for the past week: our über-cool and highly respectable Queen's representative was visiting Inuit communities in the north and, as GGs are wont to do, attended a cultural ceremony. So what, you say? This one happened to be the celebration of a seal harvest during which the freshly caught seals are skinned and partially eaten, raw. The most important parts of the seal and eaten right away: elders first, dignitaries second, etc. So, when the elders had been served and Michaëlle (if I may use her first name) was offered a piece of the heart from the seal she was learning how to skin and gut, she did what any woman of respect and manners would do in such a situation and accepted the kind and generous offer. And she said she enjoyed it.

Well. As one could imagine, that's when all hell broke loose. Somehow, this act of participating in a ceremony that shows great respect for the animals who are sacrificed to keep a people alive, and that shows equally great respect for the history and culture and collective wisdom of that people, has been interpreted by Europeans and animal rights activists as barbaric and cruel. Now, anyone who knows me will know that (1) I am a huge defender of the sanctity of all sentient beings (i.e. I recently hand-picked several hundred red wiggler worms out of a defunct vermicompost pile to avoid throwing them out with the ill-fated semi-composted waste material), and (2) I don't think having respect for life demands the vilification of the seal hunt, sealers, and those who depend on them for culture, livelihood, or food.

I'll try to contain my ranting on the matter and leave you to follow the Globe and Mail reports. But I must pass comment. Michaëlle was well aware that her actions would be interpreted as a support of both the Inuit and the Newfoundland seal hunt. She was also aware that the seal hunt is an essential part of both cultures, and that if done in a respectful manner it is no worse than any other form of hunt. By fully participating in the post-hunt ceremony, she was making a very clear statement to the Inuit (remember them? the people who really matter in all these shenanigans) that their way of life, their culture, and their way of eating is okay. It's good. It's right. Imagine the importance of this message to a people whose culture and way of life was nearly destroyed by the Canadian settlers, a people whose food supply has been contaminated with methylmercury and persistent organic pollutants by the actions of more southern cultures, a people who are trying to preserve what they can of their traditions in the face of western culture and its social fallout, a people who survive on what is available in their very harsh environment. Imagine then, the message that she would have sent had she refused the seal heart. In the simple phrase "no, thank you" she would have been telling the Inuit people that their way is not good, that their food is not good enough, and they should change to be more like the people who created so many of their current challenges. She would have been offensive and rude to her hosts. That is not the role our Governor General.

I have one final question for those who would have the GG's head, or heart:
Would her participation in the ceremony be interpreted as such an act of evil if it were a deer, or if chickens or cows were a common ceremonial beast of the Inuit? I think not.

The Great Unlearning

It seems that life of late, and really since I started my PhD, has been about undoing. At the risk of embarking on a rant of academic drivel, the existential journey I call a dissertation has become about deconstructing my entire education. This all came about because of my efforts to do a dissertation based in the social sciences after years of training and work in the health sciences. Suddenly I found myself dealing purely with thoughts and ideas, with maybe a little qualitative data thrown in to back them them up — quite a shift from that other world where numbers reign supreme and you throw in a few token ideas at the end in the "interpretation and application" section of a research report, taking care of course not to say something that couldn't be referenced back to some form of data elsewhere.

It was a very conscious choice to stick to the thoughts and ideas brand of research for my PhD. The more I learned about epidemiology and data, the more I understood how easily numbers can be manipulated — not falsified, just purposefully interpreted — to give the answer that best fits with one's worldview. It seemed to me that it made more sense to be up front about these biases and openly acknowledge the fact that ideas and opinions are very influential in the creation of research, so I set off on my search for understanding about the relationships between food, society, and culture in the facing of changing political and economic worlds. Still, even though the rationale for qualitative work resonates more closely with my heart, I have struggled and felt pulled in two different directions. I had been thinking this was simply the result of doing something for which I lack in training and experience, having to learn a new way of doing as I went along. It quickly became clear that I was not only learning how to do things in a new way, but I really had to unlearn everything I'd been taught.

A scientist walks into a coffee shop and sits down with three anthropologists.....

Something happened last week that made me realize this is something more. I joined a small thesis writing group in an effort to break down the mental walls that were preventing me from moving forward. I was sitting in a cafe sharing writing troubles with three anthropologists. I described all my difficulties in applying social theory to my work and how it was keeping me from beginning analysis of all my interview data (something I've been ranting about for 3 years now). They asked where the initial idea for my research came from, and I started in about The Decline of the Modern Cookbook* and the social determinants of health. They looked at me slack-jawed and told me I already had a theoretical perspective and I should just get on with it and ignore Foucault, Bourdieu, Levi-Strauss, critical theory, post-structuralist constructivism, and all that.

Theoretical problems solved, we moved on to analysis. My science brain figured I needed a detailed paper trail of 'proof' for everything I claim to have found through my research. (I should note here that this is not because I think that's necessary, but because I thought nobody would consider it legitimate research otherwise). Anyway, I learned that anthropologists consider spending months in a place, interacting with people, interviewing them, observing what happens, and then clarifying what you learned from that to be entirely legitimate. No need for complicated software and pages on end of code (which of course, would be constructed in my mind, but somehow the codification process lends legitimacy to those folks who think social research is 'unscientific'). So, I told them the main things I learned and why, and suddenly I'm halfway to an outline for my thesis and a plan for how to write it up.

Unscientific Un-learning

All this got me thinking. A lot. And I think I've learned a few things about myself and the academic process in general.
1. Most mainstream education has the effect of slowly killing our creativity. I thought this happened in university, but I think it began much sooner. In high school I used to skip my science classes to attend music rehearsals. Back in grade one, there was some concern about my progress on account of shoe tying issues. To the educational system, I wasn't good at tying shoes. To me, they just didn't appreciate my creative methods. I mean, my shoes never fell off....

2. The loss of food culture and cooking skills and knowledge — all the things that led to my thesis research — are related to a loss of culinary creativity and the homogenization of diet. Interestingly, around the time I was being criticized for creative shoe tying, I was given the Beatrice Potter Natural Foods Cookbook to which I attribute the origins of my intense attraction to good food.

3. There's something going here between my own creative processes, my dissertation, and food. Somehow it's all going to connect. Oddly enough, it was the sense that my education was killing my creativity that led to my dropping out of music school way back when, and ultimately to my scientific education. I've decided to reclaim it by learning to play the tabla. This has the nice side benefit of having a connection to Indian culture and spiritual traditions, which conveniently will be a major theme in my thesis.

I of course have no hard data to prove any of this.

*Some fodder for a future post, where I show how cookbooks in the 1980s began to look more like IKEA furniture assembly instructions than guides for preparing food.