{"id":20454,"date":"2026-04-06T12:54:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T08:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=20454"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:59:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T08:59:59","slug":"the-ecology-of-everyday-life-local-food-practices-in-the-face-of-environmental-threats-in-the-racha-lechkhumi-and-kvemo-svaneti-region","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/event\/the-ecology-of-everyday-life-local-food-practices-in-the-face-of-environmental-threats-in-the-racha-lechkhumi-and-kvemo-svaneti-region\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ecology of Everyday Life: Local Food Practices in the Face of Environmental Threats in the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti Region"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On April 7 at 17:00, the Anthropology Research Centre and the Doctoral Programme in Social and Cultural Anthropology invite you to an online seminar by Dr. Natallia Paulovich: “The Ecology of Everyday Life: Local Food Practices in the Face of Environmental Threats in the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti Region.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This presentation outlines the conceptual foundations of the emerging research project \u201cThe ecology of everyday life: Local food practices in the face of environmental threats in the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region\u201d. The future study will investigate how communities living in an arsenic-affected area of northern Georgia navigate environmental uncertainty in their daily lives, with particular attention to food sourcing, preparation, and consumption. Although geological, environmental and medical researchers have extensively documented arsenic contamination stemming from abandoned processing facilities, the social dimensions of this ecological crisis remain largely unexamined. Little is known about how residents understand contamination, how risk knowledge circulates within households and communities, or how longstanding culinary traditions are re-interpreted in light of perceived threats. Building on Mary Douglas\u2019s insight that purity and pollution operate as both symbolic and social classifications, the project approaches toxicity not only as a measurable chemical hazard but also as a lived condition embedded in everyday practices. The presentation maps the conceptual terrain that guides this ethnographic inquiry, drawing on scholarship in environmental anthropology and studies of foodways under conditions of degradation, and comparative research on community responses to industrial pollution. It introduces the proposed methodological framework\u2014long-term participant observation, semi-structured interviews, household food mapping, and interdisciplinary collaboration with environmental scientists\u2014designed to trace the interplay between ecological risk and domestic life. By outlining the theoretical rationale and research design, this presentation sets the stage for a broader investigation into how rural communities in Georgia interpret, negotiate, and accommodate environmental threats in their everyday ecologies. The goal is to articulate the analytical questions that will drive the fieldwork and to situate the project within ongoing environmental debates.<\/p>\n

Bio\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr.\u00a0Natallia Paulovich\u00a0is an Assistant Professor at The Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, Poland, specialising in gender studies, food anthropology sociology, and Eastern European studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2018, and holds a master\u2019s degree in History. Dr. Paulovich has conducted extensive fieldwork in Georgia and Belarus, focusing on issues of gender, social identity, and post-Soviet transformations. Her work has been published in journals such as Slavic Review and Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia. Her first book called \u2018The Taste of Agency: Cooking, Gender, and Social Change in Georgia\u2019 appeared in 2025 in Palgrave MacMillan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 7 at 17:00, the Anthropology Research Centre and the Doctoral Programme in Social and Cultural Anthropology invite you to an online seminar by Dr. Natallia Paulovich: “The Ecology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[51,78],"class_list":["post-20454","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-events","tribe_events_cat-school-of-arts-and-sciences","cat_events","cat_school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/20454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/20454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20454"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.iliauni.edu.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=20454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}