The agency of eating : mediation, food and the body / Emma-Jayne Abbots.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Abbots, Emma-Jayne, author.

Series:

Contemporary food studies: economy, culture and politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food habits--Social aspects.

Food habits.

Food habits--Moral and ethical aspects.

Food preferences--Social aspects.

Food preferences.

Food preferences--Moral and ethical aspects.

Physical Description:

ix, 180 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury, 2017.

Summary:

Deciding what to eat and how to eat it are two of the most basic acts of everyday life. Yet every choice also implies a value judgement: `good' foods versus `bad', `proper' and 'improper' ways of eating, and 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' bodies. These food decisions are influenced by a range of social, political and economic bioauthorities, and mediated through the individual 'eating body'. This book is unique in the cultural politics of food in its exploration of a range of such bioauthorities and in its examination of the interplay between them and the individual eating body. No matter whether they are accepted or resisted, our eating practices and preferences are shaped by, and shape, these agencies. Abbots places the body, materiality and the non-human at the heart of her analysis, interrogating not only how the individual's embodied eating practices incorporate and reject the bioauthorities of food, but also how such authorities are created by the individual act of eating. Rich in ethnographic detail drawn from case studies around the globe, The Agency of Eating is an important analysis of the power dynamics at play in the contemporary food system and the ways in which agency is expressed and bounded, which will be of great benefit to any reader with an interest in food studies, anthropology, sociology and human geography. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Eating bodies and bodies of eating: Theoretical foundations 13

2 Eating at home: Kinned, shared and acquired bodies 35

3 Eating away from home: Displaced and (re)rooted bodies 57

4 Eating heritage foods: Proximate and distanced bodies 79

5 Eating 'Global Food' and its alternatives: Anxious, obscured and active bodies 101

6 Eating for self and society: Responsible, acceptable and abject bodies 123

7 Eating futures: Reflections and directions 143.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1472598539

9781472598530

OCLC:

950745321