Skip to main content

Changing One’s Foodway: Creativity as Repositioning

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture ((PASCC))

Abstract

“What will I eat today? Where do these potatoes come from? Are they organic? Is this egg environmental friendly enough? And what is the impact of this bread on my health? How will my friends react if I tell them I don’t eat meat anymore?” This could be the internal dialogue of a person in a process of changing his or her foodway. In this chapter, starting from the assumption that the current situation of the food production system raises many challenges and therefore calls for creativity, I propose to follow the trajectory of a young man who radically changed his food habits. In order to conduct this case study, I draw on socio-cultural psychology, and more specifically on Glăveanu’s (2012, 2015a) approach of creativity and Benson’s (2001) work on the self as a locative system. This leads me to understand this change as a creative process implying positioning and repositioning movements towards several current issues linked to food production and consumption, a process in which others play a fundamental role.

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

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 219.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 279.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 279.99
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

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Data for 2015 available on the website of the Federal Statistical Office: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/agriculture-sylviculture/alimentation/consommation-sante.assetdetail.3524750.html, 28/11/2017.

  2. 2.

    Famous and successful contemporary tennis player.

  3. 3.

    Those figures were constructed based on a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) in which I coded separately elements mentioned in parts of the interview referring to life segments before the injury and elements mentioned in parts of the interview referring to periods after the injury.

References

  • Anderson, E. N. (2005). Everyone eats: Understanding food and culture. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austgulen, M. H. (2014). Environmentally sustainable meat consumption: An analysis of the Norwegian public debate. Journal of Consumer Policy, 37(1), 45–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-013-9246-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Awad, S. H., & Wagoner, B. (2015). Agency and creativity in the midst of social change. In C. W. Gruber, M. G. Clark, S. Hroar Klempe, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Constraints of agency. Explorations of theory in everyday life (pp. 229–243). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belasco, W. J. (2006). The stakes in our steaks. In Meals to come: A history of the future of food (pp. 3–19). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, C. (2001). The cultural psychology of self: Place, morality, and art in human worlds. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, C. (2010). From Dr No to Dr Yes! Positioning theory and Dr Ian Paisley’s endgame. In F. M. Moghaddam & R. Harré (Eds.), Words of conflict, words of war (pp. 139–154). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, T. C., & Campbell, T. M. (2005). The China study: The most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss and long-term health. Dallas: BenBella Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Celka, M. (2009). L’homme de la condition postmoderne dans son rapport à l’animal. Sociétés, 106(4), 81. https://doi.org/10.3917/soc.106.0081.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connery, M. C., John-Steiner, V. P., & Marjanovic-Shane, A. (Eds.). (2010). Vygotsky and creativity. A cultural-historical approach to play, meaning making and the arts. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Counihan, C., & Siniscalchi, V. (Eds.). (2014). Food activism: Agency, democracy and economy. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Society, culture, and person: A systems view of creativity). In M. Csikszentmihalyi (Ed.), The systems model of creativity. The collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pp. 47–61). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Saint-Laurent, C. (2018). Beyond collective memory: A sociocultural perspective on historical representations (Doctoral thesis). Neuchâtel: Université de Neuchâtel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denoux, P. (2014). Pourquoi cette peur au ventre? cultures et comportements face aux crises alimentaires. Paris: JC Lattès.

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Giovine, M. A., & Brulotte, R. L. (2014). Introduction. Food and foodways as cultural heritage. In R. L. Brulotte & M. A. Di Giovine (Eds.), Edible identities: Food as cultural heritage (pp. 1–27). Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, R. (1991). Skinner, creativity, and the problem of spontaneous behavior. Psychological Science, 2(6), 362–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farquhar, J. (2006). Food, eating, and the good life. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuechler, M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer (Eds.), Handbook of material culture (pp. 145–160). London: Sage Publications.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Forney, J. (2013). Social sciences and farmers in Switzerland: The story of a strange absence. Geography Compass, 7(12), 843–852. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12084.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garrouste, L., & Mitralias, R. (2013). Défis pour une émancipation agro-écologique. In H. Buclin, J. Daher, C. Georgiou, & P. Raboud (Eds.), Penser l’émancipation: offensives capitalistes et résistances internationales (pp. 257–277). Paris: La Dispute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, A. (2005). Malcolm X and his autobiography: Identity development and self-narration. Culture & Psychology, 11(1), 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X05050746.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, A., & Martin, J. (2014). Position exchange theory: A socio-material basis for discursive and psychological positioning. New Ideas in Psychology, 32, 73–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2013.05.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2010). Paradigms in the study of creativity: Introducing the perspective of cultural psychology. News Ideas in Psychology, 1(28), 79–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2011). Creating creativity: Reflexions from fieldwork. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 45, 100–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2012). Habitual creativity: Revising habit, reconceptualizing creativity. Review of General Psychology, 16(1), 78–92. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026611.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2013). Rewriting the language of creativity: The Five A’s framework. Review of General Psychology, 17(1), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P. (2015). Creativity as sociocultural act. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 49(3), 165–180. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glăveanu, V. P., & Gillespie, A. (2015). Creativity out of difference: Theorising the semiotic, social and temporal origins of creative acts. In V. P. Glăveanu, A. Gillespie, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Rethinking creativity. Contributions from social and cultural psychology (pp. 1–15). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harre, R., Moghaddam, F. M., Cairnie, T. P., Rothbart, D., & Sabat, S. R. (2009). Recent advances in positioning theory. Theory & Psychology, 19(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354308101417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ishiguro, H. (2016). How a young child learns how to take part in mealtimes in a Japanese day-care center: A longitudinal case study. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 31(1), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-014-0222-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four c model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, H. A. (2012). Fear of food: A history of why we worry about what we eat. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lewin, K. (1943). Forces behind food habits and methods of change. In Committee on Food Habits, The National Academy of Sciences, The problem of changing food habits: Report of the Committee on Food Habits 1941–1943 (pp. 35–65). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J. (2013). Life positioning analysis: An analytic framework for the study of lives and life narratives. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 33(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025916.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J. (2016). Position exchange, life positioning, and creativity. In V. P. Glăveanu (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of creativity and culture research (pp. 243–262). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Meyre, S. (2017). Agriculture et alimentation. Statistique de poche 2017. Neuchâtel: Office Fédéral de la Statistique.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintz, S. W. (1996). Tasting food, tasting freedom: Excursions into eating, culture, and the past. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montanari, M. (2010). Le manger comme culture. Bruxelles: Éd. de l’Université de Bruxelles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouret, S. (2012). Elever et tuer des animaux. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ochs, E., Pontecorvo, C., & Fasulo, A. (1996). Socializing taste. Ethnos, 61(1–2), 7–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poulain, J.-P. (Ed.). (2007). L’homme, le mangeur, l’animal, qui nourrit l’autre ? Actes du colloque, Institut Pasteur à Paris. Paris: Observatoire Cidil des habitudes alimentaires.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, C. R. (1954). Towards a theory of creativity. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 11(4), 249–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A. (2004). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55(1), 657–687. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawyer, K. (2003). Emergence in creativity and development. In K. Sawyer, V. John-Steiner, S. Moran, R. J. Sternberg, D. H. Feldman, J. Nakamura, & M. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Creativity and development (pp. 12–60). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schütze, F. (1983). Biographieforschung und narratives Interview. Neue Praxis, 13(3), 283–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, S. (2009). Eating and drinking. In Making sense of everyday life (pp. 92–115). Malden, MA: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, C. (2000). Vegetarianism: A history. London: Grub Street.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steinfeld, H., Gerber, P., Wassenaar, T., Castel, V., Rosales, M., & de Haan, C. (2006). Livestock’s long shadow. Environmental issues and options (No. 77563364). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tanggaard, L. (2013). The socio-materiality of creativity – Grasping the future. Culture & Psychology, 19(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X12464987.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torrance, E. P. (1988). The nature of creativity as manifest in its testing. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 43–75). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallimann, I. (2015). Urban agriculture as embedded in the social and solidarity economy Basel: Developing sustainable communities. In P. V. Stock, M. S. Carolan, & C. J. Rosin (Eds.), Food utopias: Reimagining citizenship, ethics and community (pp. 79–87). London/New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Winnicott, D. W. (1986). Living creatively. In Home is where we start from (pp. 39–54). Hardmonsworth, UK: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler, J. (2011). Destruction massive: géopolitique de la faim. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T., & de Saint-Laurent, C. (2015). Life-creativity: Imagining one’s life. In V. P. Glăveanu, A. Gillespie, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Rethinking creativity: Contributions from cultural psychology (pp. 58–75). Hove, UK/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabienne Gfeller .

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

Gfeller, F. (2019). Changing One’s Foodway: Creativity as Repositioning. In: Lebuda, I., Glăveanu, V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95498-1_21

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics