[Anthropgrad] Anthropology seminar Wednesday 5 November

[Melinda Hinkson]

Anthropology seminar, 9.30 am Wednesday 5 November, Coombs Seminar Room A

David Raftery, PhD candidate, School of Archaeology and Anthropology

Growing less and growing better: An anthropological analysis of the Clare
Valley wine industry

This paper introduces an anthropological analysis of the social relations of
wine production in the Clare Valley of South Australia.  Such an analysis of
wine production in this region brings a critical ethnographic focus to the
emergence of disciplines of Œquality¹ wine production; of growing less, and
growing better.  In this seminar I set out some of the relevant empirical
and theoretical concerns of my research, and present some key themes of
investigation.  

The adoption of grape growing and winemaking practices that focus on
producing lower volumes of higher valued commodities is an adaptation to
significant challenges posed by a more competitive international wine
economy, ongoing shortages of labour and water, and a changing climate.
Importantly, my research is concerned with the adaptive strategies pursued
within the Clare region, and what impacts this has had on the social
relationships that underpin the wine industry.  The ways in which wine grape
growers and wineries have formed new relationships with each other, the way
in which business partnerships have been forged, broken and amended, and the
role of the family as a social and business unit are topics to which I
devote significant ethnographic attention. It is also a detailed analysis of
an adaptation to place, a study of how the relationships between growers and
winemakers on the one hand, and the Clare region itself on the other, has
been conceived, and has developed.

The closer integration of world wine markets through trading agreements has
required that wine regions be codified in strict topographic and legal terms
known as Geographical Indications.  The business strategies of Australian
industry bodies emphasize that the quality of Australian wines will be
better recognized when the relationship between these regions and their
wines are more richly articulated.  My research in Clare investigates the
formation of these relationships, the "externalization of the internal"
(Roseberry 1994) that the market niches of contemporary food systems
require.    

All welcome.

____________________________________
Melinda Hinkson
School of Archaeology & Anthropology
A.D. Hope Building
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

T: +61 2 6125 8246
F: +61 2 6125 2711
W: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/

Information about the Master of Visual Culture Research
is available at: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/vcr.php