BIO
Emma is a cultural, economic, and environmental anthropologist interested in the applications of ethnographic research to real world problems. Her expertise lies in the intersections of food systems, global markets, sustainable development, and race/racism in Latin America and, in particular, the cultural and economic politics of neglected and under-utilized crops. Emma is a Fulbright Scholar (Peru, 2016) who has taught anthropology at Indiana University, Butler University, and the University of Zürich (Switzerland). Her research has been published in a number of journals including Gastronomica, Agriculture & Human Values, and the Latin American Research Review. Her forthcoming book, titled The Quinoa Bust: The Making and Unmaking of an Andean Miracle Crop (University of California Press) traces the unintended consequences of the quinoa boom and bust in the Peruvian Andes, drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork over the course of the boom and bust in Puno, Peru.
At THE NEW INSTITUTE, Emma is involved in the The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity program in the Academic Year 2024/25.
PUBLICATIONS
The Quinoa Bust: The Making and Unmaking of an Andean Miracle Crop (forthcoming February 2025)
Critical Approaches to Superfoods, with Richard Wilk, 2020
“La Despensa Nacional: Quinoa and the Spatial Contradictions of Peru’s Gastronomic Revolution”, in: Latin American Research Review, 2024
“Rendering Quality Technical: Modern Quinoa, Modern Farmers, and the Moral Politics of Quality Standards”, in: Agriculture and Human Values, 2023
“Imagined Futures for a Neglected and Under-utilized Crop: Quinoa’s Unrealized Development Potential as a Boundary Object”, in: Critical Approaches to Superfoods, 2020