1 - Foodscaping Remote Asia: Framework and Methodology Through the Foodscapes of Geumneung's Haenyeo

he Foodscaping Asia book series and attached ICAS 13 panels ‘scape’ some of the most remote food environments in Asia, providing researchers the opportunity to share findings and draw comparisons between inaccessible, restricted, or otherwise under-highlighted food environments. This paper introduces the framework on which the wider Foodscaping Asia project hinges through the lens of Jeju Island’s traditional female free-diving community, the haenyeo. Taking Geumneung, a fishing village turned tourist beach in northeast Jeju, as its macro-scape, this paper deconstructs the food environment of the haenyeo living there. Selected micro-scapes, the next layer of analysis, are then chosen, such as the Geumneung Community Centre. Here, the specific incidences, behaviors, and events that make a unique macro-scape what it is, which we term nano-scapes, are identified. These include ‘chimaek (chicken and beer) night’, where the divers eat and drink while working together to prepare side dishes for communal food parcels, the cooking of kimchi jjigae at lunchtimes by whichever haenyeo happens to be at the community center that day, or the preparing of packed lunches ready to be eaten on coaches as the community take a well-earned day trip using funds earned from their catches at sea. Through illustrating the macro-, micro-, and nano-leveled foodscapes found in the lives of the Jeju haenyeo, this paper conveys the core principles behind the Foodscaping concept, emphasizing its usefulness in highlighting intertwined interdisciplinary strands, drawing networks between disparate but related incidences, and overall enriching our understanding of food cultures which often escape formal analysis.