Schedule of Events

Wheat is a staple crop and provides about one fifth of global calories. Since its domestication in today's Near East (Turkey, Iraq, Syria) about 10,000 years ago, wheat landraces have been an important part of diets, livelihoods and industries. Wheat landraces are genetically diverse varieties adapted to agro-ecological conditions. They have tall stems, subject to lodging, but higher in micronutrients. They can also have a varying and lessam ount of gluten. After 1940s, due to a focus on high-yielding varieties, wheat landraces have been replaced with modern wheat cultivars. The change was swift, and today's wheat landraces have fallen into oblivion. In 2014, less than 1% of all land cultivated to wheat was landraces. Wheat landraces are important for farmer livelihoods, nutrition, food security, and climate change resilience. In recent years, there is a growing interest in reviving wheat landraces in farmers' fields. This session examines the models and actors bringing back wheat landraces in Turkey.

Originally a winemaking term, TERROIR speaks to the “irreproducible uniqueness of place” and thus offers a distinctively and stubbornly French perspective on the value of “placeness” in an increasingly global and virtual world. We will explore TERROIR roots in the world of wine only to find ourselves enmeshed in debates on environmental policy, cultural protectionism, for-to-table activist economics, nationalism and immigration, reproductive technology, urban planning, cafeteria lunch wars, accent standardization, and so much more. Yes, it's all there in a simple bottle of wine!

The informalization of labor and the rise of the “gig economy” has been a global phenomenon. The pandemic has made young people in particular rethink about their career and life aims, but even before that a new generation of migrant workers, mostly male born in the 1990s and early 2000s, have become disillusioned with the factory system and started to question the prospects for moving up the social ladder through hard work. This talk is based on Professor Hou's ethnographic study of day laborers in two migrant communities in China. It will discuss the different types of informal work they engage in, how they spend their leisure time, their relationships, and the many paradoxes displayed by their work and life choices or lack thereof.

The border wall has long served as a canvas for activist artists and border security agents alike, reflecting the paradox of the division with paint and concertina wire. This session explores the way that border policy motivates artistic responses in both countries that straddle the line. We examine art forms on or near the wall that relay the border-crossing stories not found in official registers and we delve into the human consequences of ever-changing border policy.