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Dr Graham McFarlane

Image: Graham McFarlane
PhD Belfast, 1978

Senior Teaching Fellow

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9097 3704
E-mail: g.mcfarlane@qub.ac.uk 

Office: 13UQ.102

After completing his PhD on gossip and gossiping in a Northern Irish village, he undertook research on the social and cultural effects of oil-related development in Shetland, and (with Hastings Donnan) on public policy related issues in Northern Ireland. He published various academic papers and policy reports on these topics. In the mid-1990s his research focused on the social and cultural context of change in the agricultural sector in Ireland and central Greece, but more recently he has been working on the relationship between food consumption and ideas of ‘Greekness’, especially in Athens. Here, in a world of national and international fast food outlets, food (e.g. food tastes, food consumption and preparation, food as a sensual carrier of memory, etc.) has become an even more central and complex element in the construction of local and national identity. Having had a longstanding interest in teaching and learning, over the last four years he has also developed a research interest in how social anthropology is experienced by different kinds of student.

Research Interests

Economic anthropology, perceptions of development; ethnicity, food, and consumption; British Isles and Ireland, Greece.