A classic text about the social study of food, this is the first English language edition of Jean-Pierre Poulain's seminal work. Tracing the history of food scholarship, The Sociology of Food provides an overview of sociological theory and its relevance to the field of food. Divided into two parts, Poulain begins by exploring the continuities and changes in the modern diet. From the effect of globalization on food production and supply, to evolving cultural responses to food – including cooking and eating practices, the management of consumer anxieties, and concerns over obesity and the medicalization of food – the first part examines how changing food practices have shaped and are shaped by wider social trends. The second part provides an overview of the emergence of food as an academic focus for sociologists and anthropologists. Revealing the obstacles that lay in the way of this new field of study, Poulain shows how the discipline was first established and explains its development over the last forty years. Destined to become a key text for students and scholars, The Sociology of Food makes a major contribution to food studies and sociology. This edition features a brand new chapter focusing on the development of food studies in the English-speaking world and a preface, specifically written for the edition.
Author(s): Jean-Pierre Poulain, Augusta Dörr [Translator]
Edition: 1
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 313
Tags: Food Habits: Social Aspects; Food: Social Aspects; Nutrition: Social Aspects
Cover
Half title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures and tables
Figures
Tables
Preface
By the same author
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part 1 Permanent and changing aspects in modern eating practices
Chapter 1 The globalization of the food supply: Delocalization and relocalization
1 Food becomes internationalized—through regional specialties
2 Local food cultures as champions of identity
3 From our rediscovered regions to the realm of the exotic
4 From massification to intermixing
Chapter 2 Between the domestic and the economic spheres: The ebb and flow of culinary activity
1 The industrialization of the food supply
2 Semi-prepared foods and cooking for pleasure
3 The restaurant and catering sector
4 The eater, the restaurant system, and choice
5 Retirement, or the return to the domestic sphere
Chapter 3 The evolution of eating practices
1 The theory of gastro-anomie and related debates
2 The enduring class system
3 Changes in eating practices
4 The discrepancy between norms and practices
5 From anomie to a crisis of legitimacy for the normative system
6 Overabundance and the new poverty
Chapter 4 From food risks and food safety to anxiety management
1 The misunderstanding of quality
2 Risk and modern societies
3 Risk: The experts’ view, the public’s view
4 Risk as a constant aspect of human food consumption
5 From democratic risk management to the social reconstruction of food
Chapter 5 Obesity and the medicalization of everyday food consumption
1 Obesity and socioeconomic status
2 The development of obesity and modern eating practices
3 Is obesity a social construct?
4 The dangers of a public health discourse on weight loss
Part 2 From sociological interest in food to sociologies of food
Chapter 6 The major socio-anthropological movements and their encounters with the “food social fact”
1 The functionalist perspective
2 The perspective of the anthropology of techniques
3 The culturalist perspective
4 The structuralist perspective
5 Sociological perspectives on food
Chapter 7 Epistemological obstacles
1 “Grub”: A second-rate subject?
2 The exclusive nature of the social fact and the dual tradition of Durkheim and Mauss
Chapter 8 From sociological interest in food to sociologies of food
1 The sociology of food consumption
2 The “developmentalist” perspective
3 The H-omnivore or the sociology of the eater
4 The sociology of eaters: An interactionist perspective
Chapter 9 The sociologies of food and attempts to forge connections
1 Revisiting Durkheim
2 Scale analysis
Chapter 10 The sociology of French gastronomy
1 The complexity of French gastronomy
2 Why is gastronomy French?
Chapter 11 The “food social space”: A tool for the study of food patterns
1 The social space and the dual space of freedom open to human eaters
2 The various dimensions of the “food social space”
3 Food and its social construction
4 A socio-anthropology of food: Aims and issues
As a conclusion: The call for constructivist positivism
New chapter: Food studies versus the socio-anthropology of the “food social fact”
1 The emergence of cultural studies
2 From cultural studies to food studies
3 The challenges of food studies
Notes
Introduction
Part 1 and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
New chapter
References
Index
