Camelia Dewan

Camelia Dewan, Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, has been granted funding from Formas for the four-year long research project Toxic Foods: An Ethnographic Exploration of Processes of Food Contamination in Bangladesh.

In previous research projects, Camelia has conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, to investigate the country's large shipbreaking industry. During that time, she became aware of the people's mistrust of the food sold in markets.

- Anthropologists get to know a society from the inside by spending long periods with their informants. I spent a year doing fieldwork for my PhD project in the coastal areas of Bangladesh and in the district town of Khulna and the capital Dhaka. It was clear among all my informants, from the rural poor to the educated urban middle class, that they are concerned about health risks caused by food sold in markets. The news regularly reported that fish, vegetables and fruit were injected with formalin to prevent them from rotting, that chemicals such as urea were used to make fruit and vegetables ripen faster, while spices and cooking oil were diluted with inedible substances such as brick powder and motor oil. Instead of expressing concern about not having enough food, ordinary Bangladeshis, even those with the lowest incomes and below global poverty lines, worried about 'bhejal' - unclean, contaminated, harmful food, Camelia writes in the project description.

What are you looking forward to the most in your new project?

-The most exciting thing is that I can return to my first fieldwork site and combine insights from my last two research projects to investigate a problem that is incredibly important and pressing for ordinary people in Bangladesh. This can also make us think critically about transitions to 'sustainable development'. Food security is not only about quantity but also quality: the food we and our children eat must be safe and this cannot be disconnected from our ecosystems that we are damaging with the pressure of constant growth, says Camelia.

Dewan specialises in environmental anthropology and has written books and articles on sustainability and development work in South Asia. Through long periods of fieldwork, she has been able to show that Bangladesh's current environmental crisis is not only about rising sea levels, but also about how flood protection embankments and infrastructural choices increase vulnerability of coastal areas. Her ethnography shows the major issues of structural underemployment and high indebtedness to afford healthcare and educational costs. Aspects that are often ignored in aid and development contexts, ultimately exacerbating climate risks and structural inequalities.

More about the project at Vetenskapsrådet.

Camelia Dewan’s profile page.

Text: Jennie Sjödin, December 2024