Dr. Chelsea Wentworth | Anthropology

Research Interests: My research examines hunger and food security in cultural and environmental context, and sits at the nexus of critical medical anthropology, environmental anthropology, and nutritional syndemics theory. 

Current Projects: My primary research focuses on food security in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, and changing concepts of appropriate feeding based on how caregivers value foods for children, and the structures that mediate feeding practice. Responding to both biomedically driven pressures from health care workers and familial and cultural pressures from their communities, I argue that caregivers achieve syncretic definitions of “good” and “bad” foods, hunger and satiety, malnutrition, food insecurity, and feasting. These conceptions shape how caregivers feed children, how they value their access to natural resources for subsistence gardening, their desire to engage in wage labor, and how they approach the health care system. I’m beginning a new research project in Vanuatu examining how urban and peri-urban gardens impact food security. 

Contact: [email protected]