The socio-historical reproduction and transmission of food values, diet and eating patterns within families in different communi

Principal Investigator:

Graham Smith (ScHARR)

Co-applicants:

Barry Gibson (ScHARR); Paul Ward (ScHARR)

Researcher:

Oscar Forero

Aims and objectives:

The project will explore changes in the socio-historical reproduction and passing-down of food values, including diet and eating patterns, within families in a variety of communities, with particular attention to communities with differing levels of geographic mobility. In doing so we aim to critique the notion of `changing families´, in terms of food values, diet and eating patterns and parent/child discipline. Our overall objective is to demonstrate the ways in which `the family´ adapts to the developments associated with its increasingly differentiated environment and food in particular.

Research questions:

• How has the social reproduction of food values changed in different families in different settings (with particular reference to quality of life)?
• In what ways has emergence of the ‘nutritionalisation of food’ and risk impacted in this process of change?
• How might the utility of Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and cultural capital in relation to the reproduction of food values, diet, health and eating patterns within families assist in understanding these changes?
• How might the utility of Foucauldian notions of governmentality and bio-politics in relation to the reproduction of food values, diet, healthiness and eating patterns within families assist in understanding these changes?
• Using Luhmann’s theory of social systems, how do families maintain their boundaries from their environments with particular attention to the contribution (or otherwise) of mealtimes and eating to these processes?

Research design:

hile our starting point is to analyse the oral evidence in the archives discussed in the main application we also want to undertake additional life history interviews with individuals from two and if possible three generations in 10 families (20-30 interviews) drawn from a single locality in Barnsley (which has a relatively low level of social and geographic mobility) and similarly three generations in ten families from Bradford (20-30 interviews), and more specifically the town´s Ukrainian community (see Smith, Perks and Smith, 1998). Both of these projects would build on previous work and provide ongoing longitudinal studies of communities in both towns. The starting point of the interviews in each family would be the middle generation and we want to recruit 10 men and 10 women aged 35 to 55 years, one of their children and one of their parents.