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Penny B. Van Esterik

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Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, York University
E-mail: esterik@yorku.ca

Professor Van Esterik is a cultural anthropologist who has done most of her research in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Lao PDR and Indonesia) with additional field experience in Kenya, Colombia, United States and Canada.

Research interests include nutritional anthropology, gender and development, and advocacy anthropology. She has published several books on Southeast Asian topics, including Cognition and Design Production in Ban Chiang Painted Pottery (1981), Women in Southeast Asia (1982, republished in 1996), Taking Refuge: Lao Buddhists in North America (1993 republished in 2002), Materializing Thailand (Berg, Oxford, 2001), in addition to articles on infant feeding, food symbolism, Theravada Buddhism, Southeast Asian refugees and material culture. She is the author of Food and Culture in Southeast Asia (Greenwood Press 2008).

Long-term research concerns infant feeding among the urban poor in developing countries (Beyond the Breast-Bottle Controversy, Rutgers University Press, 1989), and advocacy work on women's health (Women, Work, and Breastfeeding, 1992, Risks, Rights and Regulations: Communicating about Risk and Infant Feeding, 2002).

As a founding member of WABA (World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action), she combines academic writing with advocacy writing for public use internationally.

Other projects include advocacy communication about risk and infant feeding (in the face of commerciogenic contamination and HIV/AIDS), Lao food security and natural resource management, and Others in our Midst, a project exploring how concepts of cultural difference are first introduced in introductory anthropology classes and textbooks in different countries (and what this might tell us about teaching and studying at York University).

Keywords: Nutritional anthropology; gender and development; advocacy anthropology; Southeast Asia; Thailand; Indonesia; Lao PDR

Upcoming Events

Nov
1
Fri
1:00 pm From the 2019 Hong Kong Protests... @ Accolade West Building and Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building
From the 2019 Hong Kong Protests... @ Accolade West Building and Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building
Nov 1 @ 1:00 pm – Dec 16 @ 8:00 pm
From the 2019 Hong Kong Protests to the World’s Tomorrow: The Power of Disobedience, Discourse and Creative Dissent @ Accolade West Building and Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building
This series will feature six events from Friday, 8 November to Monday, 16 December 2019. (1) Political cartoon show by Zunzi Hong Kong. Now What? [...]
Nov
20
Wed
9:00 am Graphic Design Exhibit || Graphi... @ Fourth Floor Corridor, Department of Design, Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building, Keele Campus
Graphic Design Exhibit || Graphi... @ Fourth Floor Corridor, Department of Design, Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building, Keele Campus
Nov 20 @ 9:00 am – Dec 16 @ 5:00 pm
Graphic Design Exhibit || Graphic Design Tactics for Civil Movements: The 2019 Hong Kong Protests @ Fourth Floor Corridor, Department of Design, Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building, Keele Campus
Drawing on tactics employed in protests in the past 10 years, including the 2014 Umbrella Movement (Hong Kong) and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street (United [...]
Jan
14
Tue
2:00 pm Language, Identity and Heritage ... @ Room 519, Fifth Floor, Kaneff Tower
Language, Identity and Heritage ... @ Room 519, Fifth Floor, Kaneff Tower
Jan 14 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Language, Identity and Heritage Preservation in Singapore and Vancouver @ Room 519, Fifth Floor, Kaneff Tower
Join the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada) and the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) as we discuss the efforts to preserve Chinese [...]
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