Doctoral Research:

Buddhism, Food, & Economy
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This project examines how Buddhist values and practices are entangled in other aspects of foodways yet remain entwined in mainstream economy. Specifically how new transnational Buddhist food ventures (social enterprises) and agricultural endeavours such as organic farming, animal sanctuaries, and food security projects are situated within Atlantic Canada. Following global flows and commodity chains my fieldwork was conducted in Prince Edward Island and Taiwan. This research is funded by SSHRC, the Religion & Diversity Project  and Dalhousie University. 

Research Fellow:

Mobilities and externalities in Nova Scotia’s local food movement

Local food movements argue that a reduction of food-miles has positive social, environmental and economic impacts. A full account of the costs of food production, however, needs to go beyond the path from food to plate and consider the wider set of translocal social and economic relations involved in local food production. Using a multi-method, ethnographic approach, this project examines the costs of local food production with special attention on the international labour migration that sustains Nova Scotia’s agricultural sector. The study entails surveys of farmers’ market and CSA food box customers, a survey of Nova Scotia farmers, interviews with Nova Scotia farmers and farm workers and participant observation on several small NS farms. The research is funded by the EU Mobile Lives Forum (See the full proposal here). The Principal Investigators are Dr. Karen Foster (SOSA, Dalhousie), Dr. Elizabeth Fitting (SOSA, Dalhousie) & Dr. Catherine Bryan (Social Work, Dalhousie).

Culture on the Edge

Contributor and Chapter 3 Collaborator with Culture on the Edge — a 16 person international collaboration–publicizes its members’ work on its blog along with peer reviewed guest posts, and also in two book series with Equinox Publishers of the UK. The collaborative interrogate the contradiction between the historicity of identity, which is always fluid over place and time, and common scholarly assertions of a static and ahistorical origin for an identity community (whether religious, national, ethnic, etc.) against which cultural change can be measured.  Find more on Twitter or explore the blog. Some of my peer reviewed posts with Culture on the Edge can be found here.

Solidarit(i)és: CASCA & SANA ConferenceScreen Shot 2017-07-03 at 11.43.48 AM.png

Co-organizer of the 2016 joint conference of the Canadian Anthropology Society & Society for the Anthropology of North America held at Dalhousie University. The five day conference included a wide array variety of discussion,  but particularly saw panelists exploring how anthropologists define and engage with solidarities, looking at the histories, moments, and sites of connection and alliance, informed by the complexities of inequality and difference, and which may involve failed or fractured solidarities. https://cascasana2016.com

Religion & Diversity Project
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Student team member of the Religion & Diversity Project under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Helland.  The central focus of the project  ” is to identify in detail the contours of religious diversity in Canada and the potential benefits of approaches to diversity that promote substantive or deep equality and move beyond tolerance and accommodation.” Profile can be found on this page.