Intimate Food : Establishing Relationships within the Food Chain
(2020)- Abstract
- The aim of the dissertation is to explore how actors within the food value chain form meaningful relationships, practically and emotionally, with food and through food. It analyzes the making of these relations through the lens of organic, local and heritage food. It demonstrates that the impetus common to various food initiatives – such as organic, local and heritage food – is that they try to break through the anonymity barrier of the industrial food system by connecting producers, middlemen and consumers, as well as places and products. The increase in production, retailing and consumption of these foods responds to perceptions of placelessness, standardization and disconnectedness (between past and present, between producers and... (More)
- The aim of the dissertation is to explore how actors within the food value chain form meaningful relationships, practically and emotionally, with food and through food. It analyzes the making of these relations through the lens of organic, local and heritage food. It demonstrates that the impetus common to various food initiatives – such as organic, local and heritage food – is that they try to break through the anonymity barrier of the industrial food system by connecting producers, middlemen and consumers, as well as places and products. The increase in production, retailing and consumption of these foods responds to perceptions of placelessness, standardization and disconnectedness (between past and present, between producers and consumers) in the contemporary food system. The desire to establish relationships between food producers and consumers is also a wish to instill wholeness into a fragmented food system.
One characteristic of the contemporary food system is the level of engagement between producers, middlemen and consumers. This engagement is conspicuous in food practices labelled “ethical” or “alternative,” which revolve around doings things differently, more consciously and more intimately, compared to the business-as-usual mechanisms of the “conventional” food system. Engagement with production and consumption means that people dedicate their time, energy, money, and attention to the cause. This level of engagement also means that boundaries between producers, middlemen, and consumers blur more and more. These actors thus “meet” more frequently as they travel online and offline across the food value chain. In the process, specific food values are negotiated and contested, influencing how these actors produce and consume food every day. As people put their food values into practice, they engage with issues such as animal rights, environmental concerns, personal health and social justice. These practices also include how people construe and experience time, how they tell stories to put food production and consumption into context, how they steer between competing moralities and how they establish relationships while managing an extensive range of emotions.
The theoretical framework of the dissertation is based on concepts chosen to analyze relationships between people, places and products within the contemporary food chain and how they are established. These concepts are: consumption and taste; emotions and affect; performance and narratives; heritage and tradition. The dissertation follows the food value chain by means of ethnography and analyzes how actors within the chain experience it. Through four empirical case studies, the dissertation shows that the production and consumption of food involves relational practices, which connect people, places and products. The case studies forming the spine of this compilation dissertation thus bring to light the complexity of today’s food value chain, ranging from an apple grower to an organic retailer, and from a consumer association to a dairy product. The case studies focus on distinct aspects: production; retail; consumption; and product. Taken together, they illustrate how these different parts are intimately connected and shows that each may be more fully understood through exploration and reference to the whole food value chain. Studying the interaction between the actors who make up the different parts, it becomes possible to explore the cultural construction of the food value chain. Each article brings forward a key concept to help analyze how relationships are formed within the food value chain. These concepts are: “co-production”, “organic intimacy”, “co-consumption” and “heritagization”. Collectively, the articles illustrate how food becomes intimate through the emotional practices of various actors within the food value chain. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/334953a2-1ec2-45ab-97f0-d1299feb0aab
- author
- Pétursson, Jón Þór LU
- supervisor
- publishing date
- 2020-05
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- pages
- 198 pages
- publisher
- Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 334953a2-1ec2-45ab-97f0-d1299feb0aab
- date added to LUP
- 2021-01-31 11:00:12
- date last changed
- 2021-04-23 14:44:30
@phdthesis{334953a2-1ec2-45ab-97f0-d1299feb0aab,
abstract = {{The aim of the dissertation is to explore how actors within the food value chain form meaningful relationships, practically and emotionally, with food and through food. It analyzes the making of these relations through the lens of organic, local and heritage food. It demonstrates that the impetus common to various food initiatives – such as organic, local and heritage food – is that they try to break through the anonymity barrier of the industrial food system by connecting producers, middlemen and consumers, as well as places and products. The increase in production, retailing and consumption of these foods responds to perceptions of placelessness, standardization and disconnectedness (between past and present, between producers and consumers) in the contemporary food system. The desire to establish relationships between food producers and consumers is also a wish to instill wholeness into a fragmented food system.<br/>One characteristic of the contemporary food system is the level of engagement between producers, middlemen and consumers. This engagement is conspicuous in food practices labelled “ethical” or “alternative,” which revolve around doings things differently, more consciously and more intimately, compared to the business-as-usual mechanisms of the “conventional” food system. Engagement with production and consumption means that people dedicate their time, energy, money, and attention to the cause. This level of engagement also means that boundaries between producers, middlemen, and consumers blur more and more. These actors thus “meet” more frequently as they travel online and offline across the food value chain. In the process, specific food values are negotiated and contested, influencing how these actors produce and consume food every day. As people put their food values into practice, they engage with issues such as animal rights, environmental concerns, personal health and social justice. These practices also include how people construe and experience time, how they tell stories to put food production and consumption into context, how they steer between competing moralities and how they establish relationships while managing an extensive range of emotions.<br/>The theoretical framework of the dissertation is based on concepts chosen to analyze relationships between people, places and products within the contemporary food chain and how they are established. These concepts are: consumption and taste; emotions and affect; performance and narratives; heritage and tradition. The dissertation follows the food value chain by means of ethnography and analyzes how actors within the chain experience it. Through four empirical case studies, the dissertation shows that the production and consumption of food involves relational practices, which connect people, places and products. The case studies forming the spine of this compilation dissertation thus bring to light the complexity of today’s food value chain, ranging from an apple grower to an organic retailer, and from a consumer association to a dairy product. The case studies focus on distinct aspects: production; retail; consumption; and product. Taken together, they illustrate how these different parts are intimately connected and shows that each may be more fully understood through exploration and reference to the whole food value chain. Studying the interaction between the actors who make up the different parts, it becomes possible to explore the cultural construction of the food value chain. Each article brings forward a key concept to help analyze how relationships are formed within the food value chain. These concepts are: “co-production”, “organic intimacy”, “co-consumption” and “heritagization”. Collectively, the articles illustrate how food becomes intimate through the emotional practices of various actors within the food value chain.}},
author = {{Pétursson, Jón Þór}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands}},
title = {{Intimate Food : Establishing Relationships within the Food Chain}},
year = {{2020}},
}