Taxpayer funds were used for dubious research into the political nature of a popular food product.

The explanation is even more amazing

The amazing thing is nearby. Although not quite geographically. Oxford Museum scientists will explore the “political nature” of milk and its “colonial legacy”. As it turned out recently, the project will be financed from taxpayers.

Photo: freepik.com

Dr Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp said the suggestion that milk is a key part of the human diet «may be understood as a white supremacist statement» since many populations outside Europe and North America have high rates of lactose intolerance in adulthood.

The new project, Milking: Colonialism, Legacy and Everyday Interactions with Dairy, has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The Council itself is funded by the UK Government through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and provides about £110 million to researchers from universities and independent organisations.

The dairy project will be based at the History of Science Museum in Oxford, which has announced it has received funding. The amount of the grant has not yet been disclosed.

The museum said: “With a particular focus on communities involved in industry, relief and government regulation, the project seeks to focus on heritage as a vital basis for understanding how colonial legacies impact contemporary issues and people's lives. Through dairy diaries, archival research and collaborative podcasting, he will explore historical interactions with milk, building networks with consumers and producers in the UK and Kenya. The project will question both the imagined and real aspects of milk, revealing the intimate and political nature of this everyday drink.»

Dr Zetterstrom-Sharp took part in a talk on 'Milk and White' during the Wellcome exhibition Trust, focusing on milk in 2022.

During the panel discussion, she noted that Northern Europeans' «obsession with milk» has led to the assumption that it is a vital part of any human diet and should be produced and supplied in huge quantities. scale.

The Wellcome Trust exhibition, writes the British press, demonstrated the imposition of a dairy economy by colonial powers, including in regions where the population had high levels of lactose intolerance.

Dr Zetterstrom-Sharp also highlighted issues related to how local milk production in Africa may have been abandoned in favor of industrial methods aimed at producing larger volumes, and how milk was distributed by humanitarian organizations.