Arantza Begueria

The aim of this project is to do a prospective ethnographic analysis of the multiple ways in which the use of mobile digital media and smart devices are influencing food related habits and affecting the way Western society thinks about food, health, technology and the human body.
These technologies may include smart phones apps, portable spectrometers and bar code reading devices, wearable technologies and other digital devices (Internet of Things). The target applications are those that specifically address issues of healthy eating or risk in food. However, this study will employ a user-centered approach, so no specific applications will be analyzed. Instead, we will “follow the users” around any devices or technologies they may use, acknowledging the fact that Internet usage does not always take place in the same place, at the same Internet site, from the same application or making use of the same device for connection.
The project is interested in the embodied relationship that people establish with the technology they use, the knowledge production and management on health and health risks provided and mediated by these technologies, the discourses on healthy eating and food risk among users, the perceptions on health and food risk, and the dietary and culinary practices articulated around the devices. It also aims to acknowledge what discourses, bodies and embodied practices are left out of the spectrum of use of these technologies.
The project draws on an anthropological approach in the intersection between technology studies, medical anthropology, anthropology of the body and food and nutrition studies. It proposes an innovative subject of study, as there are no in-depth ethnographic studies on how apps and mobile devices are being used for healthy eating related practices. It also aims to use a novel methodology based on digital ethnography to extend its ways into the challenges posed by current technological reality.

• 2014-2017 Board member of the Food Monitoring Centre (ODELA), University of Barcelona, Spain
• 2015-2017 Research team member. Project: Trust and responsibility in food consumption of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Spain. University of Barcelona, Spain, Department of Anthropology. Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
• 2013-2016 Research assistant. Project: Elderly and social media: Bridging the gap of e-marginality. Open University of Catalonia, Spain, School of Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunication.
• 2011-2015 MA in Anthropology and Ethnography (University of Barcelona, Spain)
• 2013 Grant to support academic activities of the Catalan Public Universities Faculty (Government of Catalonia) Courses: Anthropology of the Body, Medical Anthropology. University of Barcelona.
• 2010-2013 Research team member. Project: Toxic Bodies: Sociocultural Etnoepidemiology of Internal Contamination by Persistent Toxic Substances in Spain. University of Barcelona, Spain, Department of Anthropology.
• 2007-2011 BA in Cultural Anthropology (University of Barcelona, Spain)
• 2008 Research assistant. Project: Mathematical E-learning. Open University of Catalonia, Spain, Department of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications.
• 2008 Research assistant. Project: MediaArtWiki. Open University of Catalonia, Spain, Art and Humanities Department.
• 2005-2006 Research assistant. Project: Metacampus Real. Open University of Catalonia, Spain, Department of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications.
• 1997-2001 BA in Audiovisual Communication (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

• Beneito-Montagut, R., Begueria, A., Cassian, N. (2017). Doing Digital Team Ethnography: Being there together and digital social data. Qualitative Research, I-19
• Beneito-Montagut, R., Begueria, A., & Cassián, N. (2016). Caring relationships online in later life. Gerontechnology, 15(Supplement), 146s.
• Begueria, A. (2015). Aging, Corporeality and Embodiment (Chris Gilleard and Paul Higgs). Anthropology & Aging, 36(2), 216-217.
• Begueria, A., Larrea, C., Muñoz, A., Zafra, E., Mascaró-pons, J., & Porta, M. (2014). Social discourse concerning pollution and contamination in Spain: Analysis of online comments by digital press readers. Contributions to Science, 10, 35–47.

Books and book chapters

• Begueria, A. (2017) Dispositivos inteligentes sobre riesgo alimentario: reflexiones sobre alimentación y cuerpo. In Lorenzo, M; Medina, F. X.; López García, J. (eds.) (2017) Comida y mundo virtual: Internet, redes sociales y representaciones visuales. Barcelona: UOC Press.
• Begueria, A. (2016). Un equilibrio imperfecto. Alimentación ecológica, cuerpo y toxicidad. Barcelona: Editorial UOC.
• Begueria, A. (2015). La comida ecológica en Barcelona: discursos y prácticas en torno a la idea de equilibrio. In Otras Maneras de Comer. Elecciones, convicciones, restricciones. (pp. 632–652). Barcelona: Observatorio de la Alimentación.
• Muñoz, A., Larrea, C., Zafra, E., & Begueria, A. (2014). Las responsabilidades sobre las sustancias químicas y los Compuestos Tóxicos Persistentes (CTP): una perspectiva antropológica sobre los riesgos. In Periferias, Fronteras y Diálogos (pp. 4386–4406). Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

• “Organic Food, Alternative Medicines and New Age”. XIV Congress of Spanish Anthropology: “Antropologies in Transformation: senses, compromises and utopia”. Valencia, Spain, September 2017
• “Responsibility in food consumption of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Spain: narratives and ethnographies about the risk of internal contamination by Toxic Organic Pollutants”. XIV Congress of Spanish Anthropology: “Antropologies in Transformation: senses, compromises and utopia”. Valencia, Spain, September 2017

2016

• “Social Media in later life and social isolation”. 4S/EASST CONFERENCE BCN 2016 “Science + technology by other means”. Barcelona, Spain, August-September 2016
• „(Non)organic bodies: perceptions on corporeality of organic food consumers“. II International Congress of Iberoamerican Anthropology AIBR „Identity: bridges, thresholds and walls“. Barcelona, Spain, September 2016

2015

• “Organic food in Barcelona: discourses and practices regarding the idea of balance”. IV International Congress of the Food Monitoring Centre: “Other ways of eating: choices, convictions, restrictions”. Barcelona, Spain, June 2015

2014

• “Mobile applications for self-monitoring food risk”. 39th International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition Conference: “Food, Internet and Social Media”. Montánchez, Spain, December 2014
• „Accountability on chemical substances, toxic compounds and Organic Persistent Pollutants: an anthropological perspective on the risks“. XIII Congress of Spanish Anthropology „Periphery, Borders and Dialogues“. Tarragona, Spain, September 2014

2013

• “Elderly, Social Media and Social Isolation” (authored by Beneito-Montagut, R. & Begueria, A.). Workshop Global Aging: Rising Challenges, UOC´s Education & Technology for Social Change UNESCO Chair. Barcelona, Spain, November 2013
• “Online ethnography in medical anthropology: the analysis of readers’ comments in online newspapers”. Medical Anthropology Young Scholars 2013 “Impediments and catalysts”. Tarragona, Spain, July 2013

2012

• “Discourses on pollution and contamination on online comments by digital press readers”. XXIII School of Public Health. Workshop “Toxic corporality, cultures of contamination”. Menorca, Spain, September 2012

• Seminar: “The client’s ideas about organic food”. Course on Sustainable Restaurant Business. Spanish Association of Sustainable Restaurants. May-December 2017.
• Research seminar: “’This is like a religion’. Spiritual and medical elements in organic food consumption in Barcelona”. Seminar GREHMER (Research Group on Mysticism and Religious Heterodoxies), Department of Anthropology, University of Barcelona, January 2017.
• Research Seminar: “Internet and social media as an arena for anthropological research”. Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain, April 2016
• Lecture and round table: “Social discourse concerning pollution and contamination in Spain: Analysis of online comments by digital press readers”. Ateneu Barcelonès, Barcelona, Spain, March 2015
• Postgraduate seminar: “Air pollution and food contamination: different perceptions”. MA in Anthropology and Ethnography, University of Barcelona, Spain, April 2013