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Sugar: Laurie Taylor explores the ways in which the sweet stuff has transformed our politics, health, history and even family relationships.

SUGAR: Laurie Taylor explores the ways in which the sweet stuff has transformed our politics, health, history and even family relationships. He’s joined by Ulbe Bosma, Professor of International Comparative Social History at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and author of a tour de force global history of sugar and its human costs, from its little-known origins as a luxury good in Asia to transatlantic slavery and the obesity pandemic.

Also, Imogen Bevan, Research Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, considers the bittersweet nature of sugar consumption and kinship in Scotland. During extensive fieldwork in primary schools, homes and community groups, she traced the values and meanings attributed to sugar – its role in cementing social bonding, marking out special occasions and offering rewards to children, in particular. Far from being a simple and pleasurable choice, she found it often had a fraught, morally ambivalent presence in family life.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Mon 9 Oct 2023 00:15

Guests and further reading

-Μύ, Professor of 'International Comparative Social History' at the Free University of Amsterdam.Μύ

°Υ³σ±πΜύWorld of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years Β·Μύ(Harvard University Press)

Μύ

-Μύ, Research Fellow in the ΜύSchool of Social and Political Science. at the University of Edinburgh

Paper: Bittersweet: living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland (Forthcoming Journal of Medical Anthropology)

Broadcasts

  • Wed 4 Oct 2023 16:00
  • Mon 9 Oct 2023 00:15

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