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Tony VanWinkle

Settler, He/Him

Director of the Rian Fried Center for Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems, Faculty in Sustainable Food Systems

802-586-7711 ext 105 tvanwinkle@sterlingcollege.edu

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I am a settler originally from Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau, Cherokee Territory, and now residing in N’dakina, the unceded homeland territory of the western Abenaki tribes. My personal and professional interests reflect an abiding fascination with the genius loci—the spirit of place—wherever that happens to be. Such themes have guided my research and teaching as a folklorist and environmental anthropologist interested in the intersections of food and foodways, subsistence technologies, and the socio-ecological systems in which these are embedded. While teaching and advising primarily in the Sustainable Food Systems program at Sterling, I also lead courses in the general and core curricula, the global field studies program, and participates in the coordination of classes offered through the School of the New American Farmstead.


Profile

Award Institution
PhD Cultural Anthropology University of Tennessee
MA Folk Studies Western Kentucky University
Presentations
VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Story Maps and Digital Humanities as Tools for Anthropological Education, Communication, and Effective Collaboration." Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Norfolk, VA
VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Farm Based Education in Every City and Town” Panel Presentation. International Workshop on Agritourism Virtual Series
VanWinkle, Tony. (2020). “Cultures of/and Culturing: Traditional Fermentation and Food Enhancement." Northeast Organic Farming Association, Vermont Chapter winter conference, Burlington, VT
VanWinkle, Tony. (2019). “Colonization by Kale: Reclaiming “Healthy” Food Through Indigenous Food & Seed Sovereignty Education” - Universities Fighting World Hunger Summit Portland, ME
VanWinkle, Tony. (2017). “From Tanka Bars to Ted’s Montana Grill: Conservation, Revitalization, and Neoliberal Nostalgia in the Contemporary Bison Ranching Industry." Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Santa Fe, NM
VanWinkle, Tony. (2017). “Fire, Fences, and Fragmentation: Woody Encroachment, and the Ethnography of Community Composition on the Prairie-Plains.” Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Santa Fe, NM
VanWinkle, Tony & Micheal Stanton. (2016). “Precipitation Envy & Irrigation Frontiers: Negotiating Water Scarcity and Abundance in the Great Plains Border Zone.” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, CA
VanWinkle, Tony. (2015). “Ethnographic Research in the Upper Washita Watershed: Community Resource Relations & Climate Vulnerability.” Oklahoma NSF/EPSCoR Annual State Conference, Norman, Oklahoma
Friedman, Jack R., Jennifer Koch, Duncan Wilson, and Tony VanWinkle. (2015). “Modeling Qualitative Social Data: Collaborative Approaches for and Continuing Challenges to Crossing the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide.” Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Baltimore, MD
VanWinkle, Tony. (2015). “Nostalgia and Remembrance in the Cultural Economy of Southern Appalachian Urban Food Movements” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA
VanWinkle, Tony. (2013). “Utopian Entrepreneurialism: Artisanal Politics, Sustainability, and the Moral Economies of Alternative Food-Related Businesses." Annual conference of the Society for the Anthropology of North America, Durham, NC
VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “Eco-political Performance and the Life Cycle of Coal: Mobilizations, Demonstrations, & Tensions Following the TVA-Kingston Coal Fly-ash Disaster.” Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, PA
VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “A History of Resistance to Surface Coal Mining in Southern Appalachia.” Guest presentation for Mountain Justice Spring Break, Roane County, TN
VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “The Politics of Knowledge in the Southern Coalfields: Mountaintop Removal, The NEPA Process, and Technocratic Discourse." Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, Santa Fe, NM
VanWinkle, Tony. (2002). “It’s a Long Way to Harlan!:’ Coal Mining and Music and the Western Kentucky Coalfields”Annual International Country Music Conference, Nashville, TN
Publications
VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Weeds and/as Ancestors: Coevolution, Cultural Memory, and the Ambivalence of Garden Maintenance.” In Greenhorns (Ed.), The New Farmer’s Almanac, Volume 5: The Grand Land Plan. Greenhorns/Chelsea Green.
VanWinkle, Tony. (2020). “Who, What, and How Much is Essential?” Food First Blog. Retrieved from: https://foodfirst.org/who-what-and-how-much-is-essential/
VanWinkle, T.N & J.R. Friedman. (2019). “Between Drought and Disparity: American Indian Farmers, Resource Bureaucracy and Socio-Environmental Vulnerability in Southwestern Oklahoma.” The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.
VanWinkle, T.N. & J.R. Friedman. (2018). "American Indian Landowners, Leasemen, and Bureaucrats: Property, Paper, and the Poli-Technics of Dispossession in Southwestern Oklahoma." American Indian Quarterly 42 (2).
VanWinkle, Tony. (2018). "Weeds, Herbicides, Bodies: Emerging Entanglements in Toxic Agricultural Landscapes." Engagement [Peer-Reviewed Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/weeds-herbicides-and-bodies-emerging-entanglements-in-toxic-agricultural-landscapes/.
VanWinkle, T.N & J.R. Friedman. (2017) “What’s Good for the Soil is Good for the Soul: Scientific Farming, Environmental Subjectivities, and the Ethics of Stewardship in Southwestern Oklahoma.” Agriculture & Human Values 34 (3): 607-618
VanWinkle, Tony N. (2017) “Savor the Earth to Save it!”: The Pedagogy of Sustainable Pleasure and Relational Ecology in a Place-Based Culinary Culture.” Food & Foodways 25 (1): 40-57
Pezzoni, Daniel J. (ed.), Tony N. VanWinkle, Deborah J. Thompson, & Elizabeth C. Stevens. (2009). The Architectural History of Watauga County, North Carolina. Watauga County Historical Society: Boone, NC
VanWinkle, Tony. “The Woman Who Planted Trees: Community Forestry and the Bowie Legacy in Fairview, TN.” The Tennessee Conservationist, October 2008

Accomplishments

Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Socio-Ecological Systems & Climate Variability, Center for Applied Social Research, University of Oklahoma, 2015-2017

Sterling College, Sustainable Food Systems Program, 2017-present
University of Tennessee, Department of Anthropology, American Studies Program, 2008-2015

Tony's Recent Blog Posts

Sterling’s Self-Sufficiency Task Force & the Role of Low-Carbon Storage Crops in Increasing Community Food Sovereignty

Posted February 1, 2021 by Tony VanWinkle read more
Biennial seed grown and processed at the Sterling Farm. These seeds, from heritage Carolina Cabbage Collards, were processed by students in this year’s Integrated Farming Practicum residency. The seeds will be available in the Sterling’s Black River Seed Library this year.

Lessons from the Coronavirus Seed Rush

Posted January 8, 2021 by Tony VanWinkle read more
Core Farm Crew, masked up. Left to Right: Liam Crannell, Gray Hunter, Gwyneth Harris, Kali Spacek, and Azsa Greiner.

Sterling Farm Responses to COVID-19 Food Security Challenges

Posted January 8, 2021 by Tony VanWinkle read more
2 photos collage. Right side hands holding skeins of yarn in bright green, pale green, orange-red, dark pink, and light brown, person in background with green sweater and blue jeans; left side, 3 sets of hands cupped and holding different varieties of beans, wood floor in background.

Pod: Traditional Ecological Knowledge & Technologies


Through these complementary courses, students will explore “kin-centric” relationships between humans, plants, and the natural world, particularly as these are expressed through indigenous and/or traditional subsistence knowledges, technologies, and histories….

10 students holding native corn in front of heritage garden on sunny fall day.

Pod: Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems


 This pod will use an agroecological lens to introduce students to the foundations of ecology, agriculture, and food systems.  Enrollment Requirements and Options: Students are strongly encouraged though not required…

Sterling College Sustainable Agriculture

Field School in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems


Organized around the triad, Production, Protection, and Provisioning, the summer Field School in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems provides students with field-tested skills and knowledge necessary to engage in ecologically…

Scale & Sustainability: Food, Farms, and Technological Limits Pod: Foundations of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Draft Animal Power Systems I & Introduction to Fiber Arts


Enrollment Requirements and Options: Students in this pod may enroll in online coursework. Students may enroll in two of courses in this pod. This pod includes the following courses: Introduction…

Anthropology of Food


Being necessary to our basic biological survival, food is a human universal. Indeed, the paired technological revolutions of fire and cooking are central features of a common human experience reaching…

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About Sterling

Sterling College uses education as a force to address critical ecological problems caused by unlimited growth and consumption that is destroying the planet as we have known it. Our mission is to advance ecological thinking and action through affordable experiential learning that prepares people to be knowledgeable, skilled, and responsible leaders in the communities in which they live.

Sterling acknowledges that the land on which we gather is the traditional and unceded territory of the Abenaki people on our Vermont campus, and the Shawnee, Osage, and the Eastern band of the Cherokee on our Kentucky campus.

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      • Ecology
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      • Self-Designed Major
      • Climate Justice Minor
      • Draft Animal Power Systems
      • Education Studies
      • Natural History Minor
      • Natural Resources Conservation Minor
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