Advertisement

Morality and Relationality in Children’s Foodscapes

Living reference work entry
First Online:
Part of the Geographies of Children and Young People book series (GCYP, volume 4)

Abstract

This chapter reviews key scholarship on childhood, food, and subjectivity. Popular debates about children and food produce a series of young subjects that are invested with collective hopes and fears, such as the idealized “organic child” (Cairns et al. J Consum Cult 13(2):96–117, 2013) or the pathologized fast food addict (Bugge Food Cult Soc 14:71–89, 2011). As these young subjects circulate throughout media and policy rhetoric, they provide the discursive context in which young people forge subjectivities through everyday food practices – whether in negotiating meal preferences with family members or trading snacks within the school dining room. The concept of the “foodscape” is used to situate children’s subjectivities within particular food spaces, relations, and practices. Drawing upon research from Europe and North America, this chapter explores three key sites within children and young people’s foodscapes: family food, school food, and fast food. Just as the restaurant “kids menu” specifies a designated array of items from which the young consumer can choose, children’s foodscapes serve up a range of available subject positions – subject positions that are relationally constituted and morally evaluated. In keeping with this section’s thematic focus on representation, this chapter explores the interplay between the construction of the young subject within dominant food discourse and the formation of young people’s subjectivities within everyday food practices.

Keywords

Food Foodscape Consumption Morality Family Health Body Mothering 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Backett-Milburn, K., Wills, W., Roberts, M., & Lawton, J. (2010). Food and family practices: Teenagers, eating and domestic life in differing socio-economic circumstances. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 303–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Beagan, B., Chapman, G. E., Johnston, J., McPhail, D., Power, E., & Valliantos, H. (2014). Acquired tastes: Why families eat the way they do. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
  3. Bell, D., & Valentine, G. (1997). Consuming geographies: We are where we eat. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  4. Best, A. (2014). Youth consumers and the fast food market: The emotional landscape of micro-encounters. Food, Culture & Society, 17(2), 283–300.Google Scholar
  5. Blackman, L., Cromby, J., Hook, D., Papadopoulos, D., & Walkerdine, V. (2008). Creating subjectivities. Subjectivity, 22, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Brembeck, H. (2009). Children’s ‘becoming’ in frontiering foodscapes. In A. James, A. T. Kjorholt, & V. Tingstad (Eds.), Children, food and identity in everyday life (pp. 130–148). London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
  7. Brembeck, H., & Johansson, B. (2010). Foodscapes and children’s bodies. Culture Unbound, 2, 797–818.Google Scholar
  8. Brembeck, H., Johansson, B., Bergstrom, K., Engelbrektsson, P., Hillen, S., Jonsson, L., Karlsson, M., Ossiansson, E., & Shanahn, H. (2013). Exploring children’s foodscapes. Children’s Geographies, 11(1), 74–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Bugge, A. B. (2011). Lovin’ it? A study of youth and the culture of fast food. Food, Culture & Society, 14, 71–89.Google Scholar
  10. Cairns, K., & Johnston, K. (2015). Food and femininity. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
  11. Cairns, K., Johnston, J., & MacKendrick, N. (2013). Feeding the ‘organic child’: Mothering through ethical consumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 13(2), 96–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Cairns, K., DeLaat, K., Johnston, J., & Baumann, S. (2014). The caring, committed Eco-Mom: Consumer ideals and lived realities. In B. Barendregt & R. Jaffe (Eds.), Green consumption: The global rise of eco-chic (pp. 100–114). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
  13. Cairns, K., McPhail, D., Chevrier, C., & Bucklaschuk, J. (2015). The Family Behind the Farm: Race and the affective geographies of Manitoba pork production. Antipode. doi:10.1111/anti.12147. Published online: 13 Mar 2015.Google Scholar
  14. Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2008). Embodying responsibility: Children’s health and supermarket initiatives. Environment and Planning A, 40, 615–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Cook, D. T. (2009a). Children’s subjectivities and commercial meaning: The delicate battle mothers wage when feeding their children. In A. James, A. Kjorholt, & V. Tingstad (Eds.), Children, food and identity in everyday life (pp. 112–129). Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
  16. Cook, D. T. (2009b). Semantic provisioning of children’s food: Commerce, care and maternal practice. Childhood, 16(3), 317–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Curtis, P., James, A., & Ellis, K. (2010). Children’s snacking, children’s food: Food moralities and family life. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Daniel, P., & Gustafsson, U. (2010). School lunches: Children’s services or children’s spaces? Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 265–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. DeVault, M. L. (1991). Feeding the family: The social organization of caring as gendered work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  20. Dorrer, N., McIntosh, I., Punch, S., & Emond, R. (2010). Children and food practices in residential care: Ambivalence in the ‘institutional’ home. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 247–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Duane, A. M. (2013). Introduction: The children’s table. In A. M. Duane (Ed.), The children’s table: Childhood studies and the humanities (pp. 1–14). Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
  22. Evans, B. (2010). Anticipating fatness: Childhood, affect and the pre-emptive ‘war on obesity’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35(1), 21–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Gibson, K. E., & Dempsey, S. E. (2013). Make good choices, kid: Biopolitics of children’s bodies and school lunch reform. Children’s Geographies, 13(1), 44–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Hayes-Conroy, J. (2014). Savoring alternative food: School gardens, healthy eating and visceral difference. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  25. Hayes-Conroy, J., & Hayes-Conroy, A. (2013). Veggies and visceralities: A political ecology of food and feeling. Emotion, Space and Society, 6, 81–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Jackson, P. (Ed.). (2009). Changing families, changing food. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
  27. James, A., Khorholt, A., & Tingstaad, V. (2009a). Introduction: Children, food and identity in everyday life. In Children, food and identity in everyday life (pp. 1–12). Basingstoke: Palgrave, 232 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. James, A., Curtis, P., & Ellis, K. (2009b). Negotiating family, negotiating food: Children as family participants? In A. James, A. Kjorholt, & V. Tingstad (Eds.), Children, food and identity in everyday life (pp. 35–51). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Johnston, J., & Goodman, M. K. (2015). Spectacular foodscapes: Food celebrities and the politics of lifestyle mediation in an age of inequality. Food, Culture & Society, 18(2), 205–222.Google Scholar
  30. Kohli, R. K. S., Connolly, H., & Warman, A. (2010). Food and its meaning for asylum seeking children and young people in foster care. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 233–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. MacKendrick, N. (2014). Jargon: Foodscape. Contexts, 13, 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. McIntosh, I., Emond, R., & Punch, S. (2010a). Discussant piece: Food and schools. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 289–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. McIntosh, I., Punch, S., Dorrer, N., & Emond, R. (2010b). ‘You don’t have to be watched to make your toast’: Surveillance and food practices within residential care for young people. Surveillance & Society, 7(3/4), 290–303.Google Scholar
  34. McPhail, D., Chapman, G. E., & Beagan, B. L. (2011). “Too much of that stuff can’t be good”: Canadian teens, morality, and fast food consumption. Social Science & Medicine, 73, 301–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Metcalfe, A., Owen, J., Shipton, G., & Drydon, C. (2008). Inside and outside the school lunchbox: Themes and reflections. Children’s Geographies, 6(4), 403–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Metcalfe, A., Owen, J., Dryden, C., & Shipton, G. (2011). Concrete chips and soggy semolina: The contested spaces of the school dinner hall. Population, Space and Place, 17, 377–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Murphy, E. (2007). Images of childhood in mothers’ accounts of contemporary childrearing. Childhood, 14(1), 105–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Nukago, M. (2008). The underlife of kids’ school lunchtime: Negotiating ethnic boundaries and identity in school lunch exchange. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37(3), 342–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. O’Connell, R., & Brannen, J. (2014). Children’s food, power, and control: Negotiations in families with young children in England. Childhood, 21(1), 87–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Pike, J. (2008). Foucault, space and primary school dining rooms. Children’s Geographies, 6(4), 413–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. Pike, J. (2010). “I don’t have to listen to you! You’re just a dinner lady!”: Power and resistance at lunchtimes in primary schools. Children’s Geographies, 8(3), 275–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Pike, J., & Kelly, P. (2014). The moral geographies of children, young people and food: Beyond Jamie’s School Dinners. London: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Punch, S., McIntosh, I., Emond, R., & Dorrer, N. (2009). Food and relationships: Children’s experiences in residential care. In A. James, A. T. Kjorholt, & V. Tingstad (Eds.), Children, food and identity in everyday life (pp. 149–171). London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
  44. Rawlins, E. (2009). Choosing health? Exploring children’s eating practices at home and at school. Antipode, 41(5), 1084–1109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Valentine, G. (1999). Eating in: Home, consumption and identity. The Sociological Review, 47(3), 491–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  46. Valentine, G. (2000). Exploring children and young people’s narratives of identity. Geoforum, 31(2), 257–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Wills, W. J., Backett-Milburn, K., Lawton, J., & Roberts, E. M. (2009). Consuming fast food: The perceptions and practices of middle class young teenagers. In A. James, V. Tingstad, & A. Kjørholt (Eds.), Children, food and identity in everyday life. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Childhood StudiesRutgers University-CamdenCamdenUSA

Personalised recommendations

Cite entry