Raúl Matta

Discipline(s)

Sciences sociales

Activities / CV

Raúl Matta is a sociologist trained as an anthropologist. He has held research and teaching appointments in France, Peru, Germany, and Mexico, and held leading roles in projects funded by national and European agencies. His research sits at the intersection of the anthropology of food, heritage and cultural studies. From that vantage point, he has investigated the ways in which food is invested with a multitude of goals and meanings by different actors and stakeholders. He is currently approaching foodways as a means to address new possibilities of living together in the broader sense, in our current context of Anthropocenic urgency and ecological devastation. By developing the concept of "convivial foodscapes", he seeks to explore and call attention to human and more-than-human alliances forged to envisage and co-produce future-oriented edible environments.

ROLE IN RESEARCH PROJECTS

• 2019-2022 : Principal Investigator in the project FOOD2GATHER (Exploring foodscapes as public spaces for integration), funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) and the European Commission (Horizon 2020)
• 2014-2018 : Project Leader in the project Food as Cultural Heritage, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
• 2014-2015 : Guest researcher in the project PalSan - Patrimoine alimentaire et Santé, funded by Sorbonne Université
• 2013-2017 : Post-doc and co-coordinator of the project FOODHERIT: A Critical and Comparative Research on Food Heritage and Gastropolitics, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR)

Additional information

• Di Giovine, M., and Matta, R. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Food and Heritage (under contract at Routledge).
• Matta, R. 2023. From the Plate to Gastro-Politics. Unravelling the Boom of Peruvian Cuisine. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Matta, R., Suremain, Ch-É., and Crenn, C. (Eds.). 2020. Food Identities at Home and on the Move: Explorations at the Intersection of Food, Belonging and Dwelling. London and New York: Routledge.
• Bak-Geller, S., Matta, R., and Suremain, Ch-É. (Eds.). 2019 Patrimonios alimentarios. Entre consensos y tensiones. San Luis Potosí and Paris: El Colegio de San Luis and IRD Éditions.
• García, M.E. and Matta, R. (Eds.). 2019. Gastro-politics: Culture, Identity and Culinary Politics in Peru. Special issue for the journal Anthropology of Food, https://journals.openedition.org/aof/9970
• Quijoux, M., Lanna, F., Matta, R., Rebotier, J., and Séchelles (de), G. (Eds.). 2011. Cultures et inégalités. Enquêtes sur les dimensions culturelles des rapports sociaux. Paris: L’Harmattan

Journal articles and book chapters (selection)

• Matta, R. 2024. Expanding “Ethical” Cooking: Parisian Chefs’ Everyday Approaches to Culinary Sustainability. In Counihan, C., and Højlund, S. (Eds.), Chefs, Restaurants and Culinary Sustainability. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press (in press).
• Matta, R. 2023. Paysages alimentaires conviviaux: pour aller au-delà de la durabilité alimentaire. In Dangles, O., and Sabrié, M-L. (Eds.), Science de la durabilité. Comprendre, co-construire, transformer - Volume 2. Montpellier: IRD Editions, 54-57.
• Starck, E. and Matta, R. 2023. Food on Wheels: Culinary Paths toward Sustainable Lives for Migrants in Germany. In Conde, D., Mariano, L., and Medina, F.X. (Eds.), Food, Gastronomy, Sustainability, and Social and Cultural Development. Boston: Academic Press, 151-167.
• Starck, E. and Matta, R. 2022. More-than-human Assemblages and the Politics of (Food) Conviviality: Cooking, Eating, and Living Together in Germany. Food, Culture & Society, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15528014.2022.2160893
• Matta, R. 2022. Scaling up and down the Edible Heritage: Food and Foodways as Terrains of Cultural Friction. In Covarrubia, P. (Ed.), Transboundary Heritage and Intellectual Property Law: Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, 41-60.
• Matta, R. and Panchapakesan, P. 2021. Deflated Michelin: An Exploration of the Changes in Values in the Culinary Profession and Industry. Gastronomica. The Journal for Food Studies 21(3): 45-55.