Caroline Merrifield

Adjunct Professor

Caroline Merrifield is a cultural anthropologist studying food, farming, and the environment in China. Her research addresses questions about living well with others, both strangers and kin, in contexts of social and ecological disruption. Her first book project explores the politics of taste and trust in China’s growing alternative food movement. A new research project investigates food sourcing in Chinese postpartum confinement practices. Caroline received her PhD from Yale University’s Department of Anthropology in 2018, and has previously served as a lecturer in Anthropology and East Asian Studies at Yale.  

Education

  • 2018, PhD in Anthropology, Yale University
  • 2013 MPhil in Anthropology, Yale University
  • 2010 B.A. in Social Studies, Harvard College

Publications

  • Stewed Chicken and Long-Nosed Kings: Tasting Troubled Plenty
    Merrifield, C. 2022. Stewed Chicken and Long-Nosed Kings: Tasting Troubled Plenty. Global Food History. DOI: 10.1080/20549547.2022.2115756.
  • Keeping Pace With the Foodshed in Hangzhou
    Merrifield, C. 2021. Keeping Pace With the Foodshed in Hangzhou. In Rademacher, Anne, and Sivaramakrishnan, K., eds., Death and Life of Nature in Asia
  • Seeing and Knowing: Sourcing Safe Food in Zhejiang
    Merrifield, C. 2020. Seeing and Knowing: Sourcing Safe Food in Zhejiang. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 48(3): 281-300.