Koby Song-Nichols

Koby Song-Nichols is a PhD candidate in history with a collaborative specialization in food studies at the University of Toronto. His work has been published in Food, Culture, & Society, Gastronomica, and Chinese America: History & Perspectives. He has presented his research internationally, including at the Oxford Food Symposium, Mills College, and the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo. He also co-created the "Food and Activism" section of Gastronomica as a way to facilitate more active dialogue between food scholars and food activists. His dissertation research examines how Chinese food and foodways have fed intercultural, intergenerational, and diasporic relations and communities in the multicultural cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Phoenix. More specifically, he documents and analyzes how Chinese Canadian restaurateurs fought for Toronto’s Chinatown, how Eurasian sisters from Montreal used food writing to express diverging identities, and how Chinese Arizonan grocers created communities that shaped the wellness of later generations. By placing these histories within the same frame, his research amplifies Chinese Canadian and Chinese American voices in order to recognize and reimagine the many ways that we all relate to one another.