ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the propositions by analyzing biomedical and international development discourse and practices in Ifugao society in relation to gender, political violence, religion, and women’s experience of malnutrition within their families and communities. The study of food, food production related to social organization, and hunger has been undertaken by anthropologists since the early part of this century, beginning with Bronislaw Malinowski’s functional analysis of a human hierarchy of needs in the 1930s. This chapter investigates cultural meanings Ifugao people give to conceptions of their bodies, food, health, illness, and hunger. Anthropological studies of malnutrition have examined relationships between gender and malnutrition, famine and hunger, or women and hunger. Anthropological and other research focusing on women and malnutrition or hunger have analyzed gender specific social and cultural problems associated with these conditions. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
