Uploaded June 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Join us for a panel discussion exploring milk’s associations with purity and whiteness and the racialised politics of diet and nutrition.
Long held to be the cornerstone of good nutrition, milk is entangled with histories of nationalism, empire and food inequality. What can a closer look at milk tell us about the ideas and forces that have shaped our global food systems?
Facilitator
Subhadra Das is a writer and historian who looks at the relationship between science and society, and what those histories mean for our lives today. For nine years, she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London, where she was also Researcher in Critical Eugenics at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. Her research centres around critical approaches to the history of science, particularly race science and eugenics, along with the history of museums, particularly the colonial history of natural history museums. She has written and presented podcasts, curated museum exhibitions, done stand-up comedy and regularly appears on radio and television.
Speakers
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp is Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, and Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the different ways in which nations, institutions and individuals navigate ethical borderlands surrounding the ways in which colonialism is both remembered and structurally embedded in the present. Her most recent work explores archives and collections relating to the end of the British Empire in Africa, including the relationships between science, technology and the imagining of decolonial futures. She is fascinated by the colonial history and inheritance of milk, and the impact of this on global dairy consumption in the present.
Fozia Ismail (she/her) is a scholar, cook and founder of Arawelo Eats, a platform for exploring politics, identity and colonialism through East African food. She has worked with a range of cultural institutions on exploring food and empire, including the London School of Economics, Tate Modern, National Trust and Bristol Old Vic. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4's ‘The Food Programme’, and in the Observer Food Magazine, Vittles and Bristol 24/7. She is part of dhaqan collective, a Somali feminist art collective in Bristol.
Andrea Freeman (she/her) is Professor of Law and Carlsmith Ball Faculty Scholar at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law. She is a Fulbright King’s College London Research Scholar currently doing research on food oppression in the UK. She is the author of 'Ruin Their Crops on the Ground' (forthcoming 2023) and 'Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice' (2019). She writes and researches at the intersection of critical race theory and food policy, health, and consumer credit, with a special interest in the whiteness of milk.
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Join us for a panel discussion exploring milk’s associations with purity and whiteness and the racialised politics of diet and nutrition.
Long held to be the cornerstone of good nutrition, milk is entangled with histories of nationalism, empire and food inequality. What can a closer look at milk tell us about the ideas and forces that have shaped our global food systems?
Facilitator
Subhadra Das is a writer and historian who looks at the relationship between science and society, and what those histories mean for our lives today. For nine years, she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London, where she was also Researcher in Critical Eugenics at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. Her research centres around critical approaches to the history of science, particularly race science and eugenics, along with the history of museums, particularly the colonial history of natural history museums. She has written and presented podcasts, curated museum exhibitions, done stand-up comedy and regularly appears on radio and television.
Speakers
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp is Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, and Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the different ways in which nations, institutions and individuals navigate ethical borderlands surrounding the ways in which colonialism is both remembered and structurally embedded in the present. Her most recent work explores archives and collections relating to the end of the British Empire in Africa, including the relationships between science, technology and the imagining of decolonial futures. She is fascinated by the colonial history and inheritance of milk, and the impact of this on global dairy consumption in the present.
Fozia Ismail (she/her) is a scholar, cook and founder of Arawelo Eats, a platform for exploring politics, identity and colonialism through East African food. She has worked with a range of cultural institutions on exploring food and empire, including the London School of Economics, Tate Modern, National Trust and Bristol Old Vic. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4's ‘The Food Programme’, and in the Observer Food Magazine, Vittles and Bristol 24/7. She is part of dhaqan collective, a Somali feminist art collective in Bristol.
Andrea Freeman (she/her) is Professor of Law and Carlsmith Ball Faculty Scholar at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law. She is a Fulbright King’s College London Research Scholar currently doing research on food oppression in the UK. She is the author of 'Ruin Their Crops on the Ground' (forthcoming 2023) and 'Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice' (2019). She writes and researches at the intersection of critical race theory and food policy, health, and consumer credit, with a special interest in the whiteness of milk.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
