The international conference on Scales of Alimentation between Asia and Europe aims at bringing together the French and International scholars of Asia in order to promote a global approach to Asia and to bring together different research institutions based in Europe and Asia.
After the first preparatory workshop held in Paris in February 2016, whose main themes were the industrialization of food production, nutrition transition processes and changes, and some case studies of specific food phenomena, the 2017 February conference will focus on the essential question of “mixture and blending” and its diverse expressions. In Eurasia, food production and dietary practices today are the consequences of social, political, and economic transformations which have actually been at work since decades in several Asian countries.
Beyond the comparison between Asia and Europe, our goal is to identify, understand or critically assess the phenomena of confluences, now booming in the field of food studies, that also demonstrates an historical process of “longue durée” with regards to the diffusion of culinary practices and local products on a more and more global scale.
We invite paper proposals from all disciplines, mainly of the humanities and of social sciences and in particular of Asian studies and of geography.
Proposals can be related, but not restricted to the following questions:
- Do we move towards new models of production and dietary practices?
- Are “Fusion Cuisines” actually existing outside the small circle of international haute cuisine?
- Can the term "globalization" really capture the multiplicity of forms of appropriation of other dietary modalities?
- What role does the food industry play in these developments ?

Paper proposals (maximum 1,000 words in English) together with a short description about the author(s) should be submitted as an email attachment to ffj@ehess.fr by the end of 30 November, 2016 (CET).