PhD Thesis Support Requested on the History and Philosophy of Food Packaging

Athanasios Stathopoulos, a Food Engineer, working in the Food Industry mainly in Quality Assurance projects in Dairy and Bakery is working on his PhD and is trying to lay out a qualified research proposal on a PhD research thesis in the History and Philosophy of Food Packaging.

He is working under the supervision of Dr. Kanavouras (Lecturer - PhD Packaging Engineer) of the Agricultural University of Athens.

He has contacted IAPRI to discover any possible short-term or long-term manner, in which IAPRI members may have an interest, in professionally supporting this effort. Possible consideration for a common project program submission to funding tools or any research area suggestions from an IAPRI member would be open to discussion.
 
The goals of this research include:
  • Understanding the way that Food Packaging has been developed throughout moments of human history of establishment or disruptive change.
  • An effort to describe such periods by choosing events mainly from the Mediterranean and European History.
  • Commenting on the effects of war and early urbanization (Industrial Revolution) on the history of food packaging.
  • Commenting on the way local and global trade (according to the political forms of authority) has affected food packaging.
  • Describing major disruptions of the 20th century and updating on current trends in research or applications of food packaging.
  • Commenting on Technological enthusiasm throughout the last decades, concerning food packaging and trying to expand sampling between the Arts, Press, Advertising Industry etc.
  • Trying to lay out rhetorical “histories” in the expanding thread of food packaging technology, mainly during the last decades that the ecological movement has risen and been activated in the human society.
  • Trying to understand and comment on a possible philosophy of food packaging, as in the ways it affects humans, societies and the planet, not excluding the connections that may arise concerning the steps and considerations that one may include in the process of designing food packaging as well
In order to achieve these goals, extensive study is necessary at least amongst fields in: Prehistory/ General History/ History of Technology/ History of Science/ War History/ Industrial History/ Ecological movement and debate History/ Social History/ Logistics and History of/ Urban Expansion and History of/ Media Coverage - Fashion - the Arts/ Philosophy of Technology/ Design   etc., all in concern with the Food Packaging Technology.

Uncovering a historical thread of food packaging technology, will require an extensive view on human history but also sociology, philosophy and maybe economics will have to be “advised” before trying to move through the purposes of this research.

Conducting this research aims at highlighting the importance of food packaging throughout human history as the means of food preservation and exchange, the organizational forms of which may affect relative technology. A recent Symposium proceedings concerning the history of food packaging have shown that this field of research is yet to be enriched by the work of international researchers (https://www.garbagemattersproject.com/2017/05/08/food-packaging-uncovering-the-history/ ), while a possible philosophy of food packaging should be able to stand in assistive terms with industrial food packaging design. Efforts will deal with projecting the role of this technology and what variety of important considerations could be taken into, in order for the food packaging to develop in a socially and ecologically conforming way, within a possibly complicated future.

If interest contact him at Stath_Ath@hotmail.com