Skip to main content

Eating Power: Food, Culture, and Politics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse ((PSDS))

Abstract

Food, if interpreted just as an expression of biological needs, may come across as natural and apolitical. It does not take much to realize that food is actually profoundly entangled with power dynamics, social structures, and environmental issues that assume immediate, tangible meanings. Both as a material object with innumerable and diverse uses and in its cultural and media representations, food reflects, supports, and reinforces values and practices that have social and economic consequences in terms of accessibility, affordability, and labor relations, at times generating oppression and injustice. In this context, hegemonic analysis allows us a deeper understanding of such biopolitical dynamics, while providing crucial tools for interventions aimed at introducing change and social innovation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2288050/.

References

A

  • Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York/London: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andree, P., Ayres, J., Bosia, M., & Massicotte, M.-J. (2014). Globalization and Food Sovereignty: Global and Local Change in the New Politics of Food. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashley, B., Hollows, J., Jones, S., & Taylor, B. (2004). Food and Cultural Studies. London/New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

B

  • Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (1974). S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (1986). Reading Brillat Savarin. In R. Barthes (Ed.), The Rustle of Language (pp. 250–270). New York: Hill and Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beardsworth, A., & Keil, T. (1997). Sociology on the Menu. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belasco, W. (2006). Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biltekoff, C. (2013). Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

C

  • Claeys, P. (2015). Human Rights and the Food Sovereignty Movement: Reclaiming Control. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cobley, P., & Randviir, A. (2009). What Is Sociosemiotics? Semiotica, 173(1), 1–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

D

F

  • Finn, S. M. (2017). Discriminating Taste: How Class Anxiety Created the American Food Revolution. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1972). Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1997). The Birth of Biopolitics. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity, and Truth (pp. 73–79). New York: New Press.

    Google Scholar 

G

  • Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goody, J. (1982). Cooking, Cuisine, and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gramsci, A. (2000). The Antonio Gramsci Reader. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

H

  • Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/Decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media, Language (pp. 128–138). London: Unwin Hyman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1988). Social Semiotics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

J

  • Johnston, J., & Bauman, S. (2010). Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

K

  • Kull, K. (1998). On Semiosis, Umwelt, and Semiosphere. Semiotica, 120(1), 299–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kull, K. (2001). Jakob von Uexküll: An Introduction. Semiotica, 134(1), 1–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

L

  • Lacan, J. (1993). The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955–56 (trans: Grigg, R.). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lacan, J. (2002). Écrits: A Selection. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1st ed.). London/ New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lebesco, K., & Naccarato, P. (2008). Edible Ideologies: Representing Food and Meaning. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lebesco, K., & Naccarato, P. (2012). Culinary Capital. London: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, J. S. (1990). Jacques Lacan. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévi-Strauss, C. (1978). The Origin of Table Manners. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, L. (2004). Clash of Empire: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Low, S. (2009). Towards an Anthropological Theory of Space and Place. Semiotica, 175(1), 21–37.

    Google Scholar 

M

  • Marte, L. (2007). Foodmaps: Tracing Boundaries of ‘Home’ Through Food Relations. Food & Foodways, 15(3), 261–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mennell, S. (1996). All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mennell, S., Murcott, A., & Van Otterloo, A. H. (1992). The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet, and Culture. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

P

  • Parasecoli, F. (2008). Bite Me: Food in Popular Culture. Oxford: Berg.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Parasecoli, F. (2011). Savoring Semiotics: Food in Intercultural Communication. Social Semiotics, 21(5), 645–663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

S

  • Scrinis, G. (2015). Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sebeok, T. A. (2001). Biosemiotics: Its Roots, Proliferation, and Prospects. Semiotica, 1341, 61–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sewell, W. H. (1999). The Concept(s) of Culture. In V. E. Bonnell & L. Hunt (Eds.), Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (pp. 35–61). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Silverman, K. (1983). The Subjects of Semiotics. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soler, J. (1973). Semiotics of Food in the Bible. In C. Counihan & P. van Esterik (Eds.), Food and Culture: A Reader (pp. 55–66). London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

T

  • Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the 19th Century. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

W

  • Williams-Forson, P. (2006). Building Chicken Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknoweledgment

This chapter has been partly made possible thanks to the grant DEC-2017/27/B/HS2/01338, provided by the National Science Centre, Poland.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabio Parasecoli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Parasecoli, F. (2019). Eating Power: Food, Culture, and Politics. In: Marttila, T. (eds) Discourse, Culture and Organization. Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94123-3_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94123-3_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94122-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94123-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics