Benedetta Cappellini

Practising thrift at dinnertime: mealtime leftovers, sacrifice and family membership

Exploring our relationship with mealtime leftovers tells us a lot about not only our relationships with waste, but with one another, in the home. In our study of British mealtimes we explore how leftovers are transformed and reused as meals. We refer to theories of disposal in exploring the skills involved in transforming leftovers. We also explore the motivations behind these transformations. Drawing on the work of Miller (1998) we examine how the reuse of leftovers involves sacrifice by individual family members for the greater good of the whole family. We also find that reusing and eating up leftovers involves a collective sacrifice by family members which marks out their membership to the family unit.

Mothers on Display: Lunchboxes, Social Class and Moral Accountability

This article explores middle class mothers’ narratives on their daily routines of preparing lunchboxes for their children. In this study lunchboxes are understood as an artefact linking together discourses and practices of doing and displaying mothering, media and government discourses of feeding children and broader issues of care and surveillance in private and public settings. Drawing on semi-structured, photo elicitation interviews and a focus group discussion, this article illuminates how mothers feel on display through the contents of their children’s lunchboxes.

Sharing the Meal: Food Consumption and Family Identity

Purpose – In this chapter, we seek to explore the collective responsibilities undertaken by the family as a whole in maintaining familial bonds through meal consumption. We draw on work which examines the role of gift giving (Ruskola, 2005), sharing (Belk, 2010) and sacrifice (Miller, 1998) in consumption. We take an original approach which does not look at the family meal in isolation but rather focuses on the patterning of meals and the relationships between them. Methodology – The ethnographic study draws on interviews with 18 families and follows up mealtime observations with 15 families. Findings – The analysis reveals a mealtime patterning involving collective participation in saving (in the form of consuming ordinary and thrifty meals during the week) and spending (in consuming extraordinary meals at weekends). Even if in the women and mothers in the household tend to sacrifice themselves more than other family members, the consumption of thrifty or ordinary meals implies a process of sacrifice involving the entire family. In viewing the meal as gift, we also observe a process of reciprocity in operation with family members obliged to both share in, and contribute to, the meals that have been cooked for them. Social implication – Our analysis reveals discordances between the aspirations of family members (which are arguably largely based on cultural ideals), and their everyday experiences of family mealtimes. Originality/Value – The chapter show how these micro experiences of family mealtimes have implications for a macro understanding of the idealised and culturally loaded construct of the family meal.

Unpacking fun food and children’s leisure: mothers’ perspectives on preparing lunchboxes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between lunchboxes, fun food and leisure. Looking beyond concerns focusing solely on health and nutrition, this article unpacks how mothers seek to provide lunchtime food that is also a source of leisure and pleasure. Design/methodology/approach – Photo-elicitation interviews and a focus group were conducted with 11 mothers who regularly prepare lunchboxes for their children aged between 9 and 11 years. Findings – Mothers intend the food they provide to act as a leisure experience and a break from the pressures of school. Mothers understand that lunchboxes must fit with children’s other activities taking place in their lunch-hour. Lunchboxes should support children’s future leisure opportunities by providing nutrition and variety to support their growth and development. The discussion of lunchboxes also shows that fun food is not simply understood in opposition to healthy food. Mothers have a wider understanding of the transgressive nature...

A space of one’s own: spatial and identity liminality in an online community of mothers

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the role of an online community in the life of 11 Taiwanese women living in the UK and considers the implications this empirical case has for theorising about motherhood and the spatial dimensions of online/on-site space. Findings from a nethnographic and ethnographic fieldwork show how online discussions reflect and amplify the liminal identities of the community’s members. In looking at doing mothering at a collective rather than at the individual level, this study highlights how collective practices of consumption perpetuate liminal identities, exacerbating consumers’ sense of being out of place. It shows how online space is at the same time the product of online and on-site liminal identities and liminal social interactions and the re-producer of such interactions.

The hidden work of coping: gender and the micro-politics of household consumption in times of austerity

Abstract This article explores the coping strategies of women in 10 middle-class Italian families facing economic crisis. We investigate food provision revealing the ceaseless extra work that goes into meal preparation. Adopting anthropological theories of thrift and sacrifice, we unpack participants’ micro-coping strategies, observing their tendency to redirect resources towards their loved ones and abnegating their own needs for the greater good of the family. This sacrifice is done out of necessity, reinforcing traditional gender inequalities in the home. However, there is also evidence that women take pride in their coping, developing new competencies and maintaining control over meal provision and thus the wider patterning of family life. We explore the significance of recessionary times for the constitution of female subjectivities at home.

Constructing the culinary consumer: transformative and reflective processes in Italian cookbooks

This paper explores how culinary texts operate in both performative and transformative senses in relation to wider societal norms of gender and cultural capital. As such, the paper explores changes to the way in which the culinary consumer is presented in British Italian cookbooks from 1954 to 2005. Across the period, we see a shift in the gendered representation of the culinary subject, from a housewife in the period 1954–1974, to a working mother from 1975 to 1986, and most recently as male or female cook from 1987 to 2005. We also see shifts in representation of cultural capital in these same periods from learning new cooking skills, to adapting existing cooking skills to displaying skills in shopping and product selection. In charting these changing discourses, we find that whilst reflecting wider culinary culture, these cookbooks also act in a transformative sense to promote (and indeed require) specific enactments of gender and cultural capital.

Nigellissima: A Study of Glamour, Performativity and Embodiment

Abstract This is a study of glamour, its complexities and its relationship with and role within celebrity culture. We explore glamour in the context of Nigella, the London-born TV cook, food writer and self-proclaimed ‘domestic goddess’ of British culinary culture. In our study we consider the interconnections between glamour, specifically Italian-style retro-glamour, and performativity in Nigella’s career. We also address the role of embodiment and authenticity in the masquerade of femininity. Our analysis focuses on Nigella’s glamour over time, considering its creation, enactment and reaffirmation following scandal. We conclude by speculating on glamour’s complex and ambivalent relationship with celebrity culture, and the role of vulnerability in creating authentic and enduring glamour in contemporary consumer society.

Ranking Gives Power: Relationships between UK Universities and Chinese Agents

This article investigates the working relationships between UK universities and Chinese student recruitment agents. Data draw on insights from the senior management of ten UK institutions. Findings reveal that the ranking position of a university is the ultimate source of power that defines its position in the international HE network of universities and agents. In addition, this article throws light on the debate of power relations between universities and agents in the international HE context and discusses the various sources of power that universities could employ to counterbalance the influence of rankings and to negotiate their network positions. Finally, the findings offer practical advice to university managements and government policy makers by discussing how universities of different ranking positions could exercise their sources of power to better leverage their relationships with Chinese agents.

Lunchboxes, Health, Leisure and Well-Being: Analysing the Connections

Existing research exploring children’s lunchboxes highlights how this everyday object ‘is a container for various aspects of the private and the public’ (Metcalfe et al., Children’s Geographies 6(4):403–412, 2008), such as schools’ initiatives to enforce the government’s healthy eating policy. Although existing studies provide useful insights into the complexity of discourses and practices surrounding the preparation and consumption of lunchboxes, they provide few insights into the relationship between lunchboxes and leisure. Drawing on photo-elicitation interviews with British parents who regularly prepare lunchboxes for their children aged 9–11, this chapter argues that important interconnections between lunchboxes and leisure can be identified. Firstly, parents intend the food they provide to act as a leisure experience, a break from the pressures of school, ‘something to look forward to’ and a way of reminding them of home. Providing ‘treats’ for children (such as chocolate) is part of this, although this may bring parents into conflict with guidance from the school. Secondly, lunchboxes must fit in with children’s current leisure activities taking place in their lunch-hour. Therefore, parents avoid including foods which are difficult to open or take too long to consume which could prevent children from engaging in sport, or playing with their friends, for example. Finally, lunchboxes should support children’s future leisure opportunities by providing nutrition and variety to support their growth and development.