The Summer
School Eating Walking Thinking (EWT) is organised by the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the
University of Milano-Bicocca (Unimib), in collaboration with 11 renowned
external partners. It is focused on the cultural “construction” of food as dynamic
construct. The way we eat is the result of a complex and multifaceted cultural
process, entangling different traditions, origins and cultures as well as new
attitudes towards nutrition, heal and sustainability. This prismatic and mobile
dimension of food needs to be considered from different angles, disciplines and
places, in order to understand (starting from daily practices) the radical
changes, which are nowadays affecting lifestyles and collective identities at
the both local and global levels.
Communities develop their preferences towards specific
kinds of food and cooking. Cultural inclinations
are determined by a changing interaction between food supplies, traditions,
social environment and global transformations. Rules concerning feeding are
thus determined by taboos and practices related to convictions about the values for a “good life”. Therefore, food
behaviours are influenced by socio-economic and cultural factors as well as by
religious and ethical conceptions. Food is not only a physiological
instrument but also a cultural need.
Philosophical, historical, anthropological, economic, social,
geographical and cultural analyses and lectures in the morning will be followed
in the afternoon by guided tours to the Expo site, museums, botanic gardens, farm
productions, religious sites, exhibitions, art cities, centres of excellence
towards a new culture of feeding/ healing, with a cultural-gastronomic tour in the
region Piedmont in the week-end.
Rethinking food means to consider the multifaceted components, which
determine it, walking and meeting different social actors, who are interested
in the improvement of the quality of life and the development of human
capabilities, feeding and healing the planet.