Roundtable: Traversing Lifeforms, A Conversation with A Goat

Serry is a doctoral researcher and cultural worker specializing in the history of food in West Asia and Egypt. She is the curator of @Sufra_archive, a digital archive and social platform dedicated to documenting and exploring the food history and culture of West Asia and North Africa.

Currently pursuing a PhD in History at the University of Toronto, she is affiliated with the Culinaria Research Center, where she focuses on food studies. Her research examines the historical intersections of power, empire, and daily life by tracing the networks of food, technology, and labor in the Arab Gulf. 

Beyond academia, Serry’s artistic and archival projects have been supported by grants from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and the Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS). She has presented her work at prominent international platforms, including the Cannes Film Festival, Oxford Food Symposium, Expo 2020 Dubai, the Islamic Arts Biennale, Art Jameel, Hayy Jameel, and Cairo Design Week, as well as various academic conferences and cultural institutions.

Subha, born in 2021, is a descendant of a goat mentioned in an Indian pilgrim’s memoir from the 1930s. Her third great-grandmother famously traveled across the Indian Ocean with pilgrims returning from Hajj. Subha lives in the mountainous region near Jeddah, grazing on millet and corn.

This is Subha’s first public appearance on a panel, where she emphasizes the importance of preserving local livestock breeds, advocating for equal cooling and ventilation systems for local breeds as European cows receive on industrial farms, and an appreciation of history of animals and meat in the region.