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Things becoming food and the embodied, material practices of an organic food consumer

Things becoming food and the embodied, material practices of an organic food consumer
Things becoming food and the embodied, material practices of an organic food consumer
The challenge to study the embodied, practical experience of consumption is attracting increasing interest in agro-food studies (Lockie 2002). This paper argues for attention to be turned towards the bodies of animals, plants and humans, materially connected through the agro-food network, to enable a study of the embodied, practical experience of consumption. This paper apprehends the relationship between humans and nonhumans in two empirical examples from the agro-food network through applying a 'relational materialist' (Thrift 1999) approach. This approach is worked through by drawing upon the concepts of 'affordances' (Gibson 1979; 1982) and 'intercorporeality' (Weiss 1999) and through introducing the concept of 'things becoming food'. A live art performance of sushi being made is discussed to show how embodied practices materially transform the fish into sushi, from production to consumption. Excerpts from the video diary of an organic food consumer and his talk are compared to explore the practice of eating or not eating between potato and human. The findings contribute to debates on nonhuman methodologies, embodied consumption practices, food quality and the intimate material connections between bodies that eat and bodies that are eaten.
0038-0199
104-121
Roe, Emma J.
f7579e4e-3721-4046-a2d4-d6395f61c675
Roe, Emma J.
f7579e4e-3721-4046-a2d4-d6395f61c675

Roe, Emma J. (2006) Things becoming food and the embodied, material practices of an organic food consumer. Sociologia Ruralis, 46 (2), 104-121. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9523.2006.00402.x).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The challenge to study the embodied, practical experience of consumption is attracting increasing interest in agro-food studies (Lockie 2002). This paper argues for attention to be turned towards the bodies of animals, plants and humans, materially connected through the agro-food network, to enable a study of the embodied, practical experience of consumption. This paper apprehends the relationship between humans and nonhumans in two empirical examples from the agro-food network through applying a 'relational materialist' (Thrift 1999) approach. This approach is worked through by drawing upon the concepts of 'affordances' (Gibson 1979; 1982) and 'intercorporeality' (Weiss 1999) and through introducing the concept of 'things becoming food'. A live art performance of sushi being made is discussed to show how embodied practices materially transform the fish into sushi, from production to consumption. Excerpts from the video diary of an organic food consumer and his talk are compared to explore the practice of eating or not eating between potato and human. The findings contribute to debates on nonhuman methodologies, embodied consumption practices, food quality and the intimate material connections between bodies that eat and bodies that are eaten.

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More information

Published date: April 2006

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 46647
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/46647
ISSN: 0038-0199
PURE UUID: 6c7ae4d7-7e8c-4832-a934-f25855f7295b
ORCID for Emma J. Roe: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4674-2133

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Jul 2007
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:55

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