Anthropologist Joeva Sean Rock Wins International 2024 Margaret Mead Award

Stony Brook University anthropologist Joeva Sean Rockwas honored with the 2024 Margaret Mead Award, an international prize given to an early career scholar who has made significant contributions to sharing anthropological insights with the public.

The award recognizes Rock's 2022 book, "We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana", published by Michigan State University Press. The book is a detailed ethnography of debates over the use of genetically modified crops and alternative ways to build food sovereignty.

Rock, an assistant professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Scienceswho joined Stony Brook last fall, said she sought to examine the impact of international philanthropy in promising for a "new" Green Revolution on the African continent.

"The title comes from a conversation I had with one of my interlocutors, who was reflecting on an interview she had recently read in US media, where a large philanthropy had described the African continent as starving and thus in need of genetically modified crops," Rock said. "She told me, 'We are not hungry. We are not starving.'

"In doing so, she wasn't denying that there are facets of hunger in Ghana, but rather, she was reclaiming the narrative, asserting that it should be Ghanaians who set the tone for policy in Ghana and not necessarily American philanthropists," she said.

The prize is presented jointly by the Society of Applied Anthropology (SfAA)and the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Rock will receive the award plaque during the annual meeting of the SfAA this spring.

"Receiving this award from my home discipline has really encouraged me to continue with this interdisciplinary work," Rock said. "But ultimately, this book would not have been made possible without the Ghanaian activists, farmers, officials, and scientists who I've spent many months with over many years now, sharing their time, insight, expertise. And so being able to put that into this book, and to have it reach so many people, it means a lot."

Currently, Rock serves as a co-director of the Mapping Biotechnologies in Africa Project, a collaboration between researchers based at the University of San Francisco, University of Chicago, and Stony Brook University.

Her research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Fulbright, the British Academy, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

"The Department of Anthropology is delighted that Joeva Rock received the Margaret Mead Award, not only because it recognizes her remarkable book, but also because it makes others as aware as we are of the public value of her work," said Katheryn Twiss, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology. "Dr. Rock's expertise in the tangled politics of development, agriculture, and biotechnology extends our Department's longstanding engagement with food and diet into new, high-impact areas. She demonstrates to our students how cultural anthropology addresses some of the world's most pressing concerns."

"The Margaret Mead Award, being presented by the AAA (the world's largest anthropology organization) and the SfAA, shines a well-deserved global spotlight on Dr. Rock," Twiss added. "We are proud to have welcomed her to our faculty this year!"

- J.D. Allen