Eating and Being Eaten: The Meanings of Hunger among Marind. 2021

Sophie Chao
Department of History, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

In this article, I explore how Marind communities in West Papua experience and interpret hunger. Drawing from Indigenous discourse and practice, I examine how agro-industrial expansion and commodified foodways provoke multiple, conflicting hungers among Marind - for sago, "plastic" foods, money, and human flesh. In tandem, Marind themselves are subjected to the insatiable appetite of various invasive entities - corporations, the government, roads, cities, and oil palm. I argue that hunger constitutes a symbolically charged, culturally constructed, and morally laden experiential mode through which Marind characterize and contest capitalist modernity and its more-than-human dynamics of eating and being eaten.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D004435 Eating The consumption of edible substances. Dietary Intake,Feed Intake,Food Intake,Macronutrient Intake,Micronutrient Intake,Nutrient Intake,Nutritional Intake,Ingestion,Dietary Intakes,Feed Intakes,Intake, Dietary,Intake, Feed,Intake, Food,Intake, Macronutrient,Intake, Micronutrient,Intake, Nutrient,Intake, Nutritional,Macronutrient Intakes,Micronutrient Intakes,Nutrient Intakes,Nutritional Intakes
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D006815 Hunger The desire for FOOD generated by a sensation arising from the lack of food in the STOMACH.
D001066 Appetite Natural recurring desire for food. Alterations may be induced by APPETITE DEPRESSANTS or APPETITE STIMULANTS. Appetite Alterations,Alteration, Appetite,Alterations, Appetite,Appetite Alteration,Appetites
D060432 Anthropology, Medical Field of social science that is concerned with differences between human groups as related to health status and beliefs. Medical Anthropology

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