Mónica Truninger

Cooking with Bimby in a moment of recruitment: Exploring conventions and practice perspectives

Every two minutes, one Bimby is sold somewhere in the world. This multi-food processor (also known as Thermomix) has gained wide sales success in many southern European countries and promises to revolutionize the way people cook, learn about cooking, coordinate and plan food practices at home. In a period where debates about cooking skills are paradoxical; some voices concerned with deskilling, while others enhance the visibility of cooking education in the media, this domestic technology is heralded as a ‘magic’ gadget that turns dreadful cooks into notable ‘chefs’. This processor cannot be purchased in shops; it is being directly sold by salespersons that make a demonstration in future clients’ houses. These are usually social events where the host invites friends and family for a free meal swiftly produced by Bimby under the demonstrator’s supervision. Demonstrators can be seen as cultural intermediaries both marketing the product and conveying normative and symbolic messages about cooking, and also instructing on technology use. The event mixes economic, social and cultural elements, and offers a good illustration of the cultural economy workings operating in it. Based upon a case study of a demonstration — seen as a moment of recruitment of new cooking practitioners — the article examines issues around cooking competence informed by theories of practice (Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Shove et al., 2007) and conventions theory (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006 [1991]; Thévenot, 2006). It is suggested that bringing a conventions together with a practice perspective offers up the possibility of developing a distinctly sociological account to analyse cooking competences in particular, and practices more generally.

Climate adaptation, transitions, and socially innovative action-research approaches

Climate change may be a game-changer for scientific research by promoting a science that is grounded in linking the production of knowledge and societal action in a transition toward more sustainable development pathways. Here, we discuss participatory action-research (PAR) as a way of thinking and leading investigations that may promote incremental and transformative changes in the context of climate change adaptation research. Our exploration is addressed in the Portuguese context, where PAR and sustainable transition studies are still marginal, and adaptation processes are a recent topic on political agendas. We describe the characteristics of PAR and use two studies of adaptation to illustrate how research and practice co-evolve through interactive cycles. The two studies are works in progress, rather than completed PAR processes. Climate change adaptation is an ongoing and long-term process. Moreover, in Portugal, as in many regions of the world, climate change adaptation is a fairly new topic. Thus, both case studies are now initiating a long-term process of change and adaptation. The completion of one research cycle is a realistic expectation that we have achieved in the two case study experiences. In our discussion of the case studies, we consider how these experiences provide insights into the role of PAR for long-term regime changes. We conclude by pointing to the societal needs addressed by PAR, as a pragmatically oriented and context-specific research design. The approach can be complementary to other frameworks in sustainable transition studies such as transition management. Being more pragmatically oriented, PAR cycles may influence incrementally transformative changes that can be guided by transition managements long-term design for governing sustainable transitions.

School meals in Portugal: governing children s food practices

Drawing on a post-Foucauldian conceptual framework we look at the rationalities that inform the organization of the Portuguese school meals and the implementation of these rationalities to transform and normalize children eating habits. The empirical material is drawn from a thematic documental analysis of the school meals regulatory framework from the 1970s up until nowadays. The objectives are threefold: 1) to describe the continuities and discontinuities of official discourses on school meals institutional practices; 2) to look at the ways children, health and food are placed and interpreted in those documents; 3) to describe and explain trajectories of school meals governmentalities and its plural arrangements. It was possible to identify five types of school meals governmental regimes: the Authoritarian; the Democratic, the Modern, the Consumer and the Obesity and Risk. These regimes are intertwined and organize in multiple ways the contexts that govern childrens eating practices in schools.

Children's food meanings and eating contexts: schools and their surroundings

Purpose – Concerns on childrens obesity and overweight have been related to food diets with excessive sugar and fat. Given the relevance of school meals in Portuguese childrens lives, schools follow governmental guidelines in order to provide nutritiously balanced and healthy meals. As imbalances persist, this study aims at understanding the acceptance of school meals by children, in the context of competing marketing allures of nutritiously poor foods outside the schools. Design/methodology/approach – Plural qualitative research techniques (focus groups with children and parents, direct observation and interviews with school directors and kitchen staff) were combined to analyse childrens food-related meanings and practices, and also images of food displayed at schools and in their surroundings. The empirical data were collected in four primary and secondary public schools with different socio-economic backgrounds in the area of Lisbon. Findings – Results show sharp contrasts between food images and me...

A Blot on the Landscape: Consensus and Controversies on Wind Farms in Rural Portugal

Abstract In recent years, Portugal has witnessed the siting of 250 wind farms, particularly in mountainous and rural areas. Even though, unlike other European countries, general public consensus seemed at first to prevail, protests by local population and ENGOs have been increasing of late (many broadcast by the media) – the outcomes of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) provide a good example. This chapter has two main objectives. On one hand, it examines how rural landscapes are discursively framed in the press when the Portuguese media picks up wind energy issues. On the other hand, by analysing EIA reports, it aims at identifying the social actors involved in the decision process of the siting of wind farms in rural or peri-urban areas, the arguments for and against the location of these facilities and how the (rural) landscape is framed and represented. The empirical material is drawn on three different sources: media analysis of the public discourse on landscape issues related to wind farms; an analysis of EIA reports regarding wind farms in Portugal and an analysis of official positions on this issue assessed through the Environmental Impact Declarations (EID) of EIA processes. It is concluded that despite the lack of media attention to landscape impacts’ of wind farms, the existing discursive frames are often attached to dichotomized cultural meanings: it either deems wind farms as technological tools for landscape progressive transformation or as a risk to its pristine image. As to the EIA reports, landscape matters are more visible and important and at times sufficient to reject approval or change of the siting of a wind farm.

School Meals and the Rural Idyll: Children’s Engagements with Animals, Plants and Other Nature

Abstract Like many other countries, a reform of school meals policies has been implemented in Portugal, wherein nutritional and health criteria are considered in the design of the public plate. Given that a large literature on school meals focus on cities seen as sites for promising transformation regarding health, resilience and sustainability, it is pertinent to examine how these policies are being received in rural areas. Similar to other vulnerable regions in southern Europe, rural areas in Portugal have been affected by depopulation, the re-localisation of public services (e.g. schools, health centres and courts of justice) to larger conurbations, a drastic reduction of farming areas and its reconversion from sites of production to sites of consumption that thrive on tourism. While research on children’s attitudes, experiences and practices in rural areas had picked up the attention of social scientists, research on children’s relations and engagements with school meals in these areas does not abound. This chapter addresses three issues: first, how the catering staff and health professionals experience children’s engagements with school meals after the policy reform; second, how the discourses of the school staff and parents around the rural and gastro-idylls contrast with the reported food practices and experiences of everyday life, and third, how the multiple engagements of children with animals, plants and other nature conflict with or are juxtaposed to the images of the rural idyll. Drawing from focus groups material with children aged between 7 and 9 years old living in the rural hinterland of an inland medium-size city in Portugal, focus groups with parents and interviews with stakeholders (e.g. school and kitchen staff, local authorities, nutritionists and catering firms) the chapter aims at contributing to a broader understanding of children lived experiences with food consumption in rural contexts.

Transforming the Rural: Global Processes and Local Futures

This chapter examines the involvement of finance companies in the purchasing and leasing of Australian farmlands. This is a new global phenomenon as, in past decades, finance companies have lent money to farmers, but have rarely sought to purchase land themselves. We investigate and discuss the activities of the Hancock company an asset management firm that invested in farmland in northern NSW. Material on the activities of Hancock and other investment firms were obtained from documents on the public record, including newspaper reports. Semi-structured interviews with community members were conducted in the region of NSW where Hancock operated. Australian agriculture is being targeted for investment by companies in the finance industry as part of a growing ‘financialization’ of farming. While it is financially beneficial for companies to invest, they do not do so in ‘empty spaces’ but in locations where people desire to live in a healthy environment. The Hancock company was criticized by community residents for failing to Transforming the Rural: Global Processes and Local Futures Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Volume 24, 3 23 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1057-1922/doi:10.1108/S1057-192220170000024001

Paisagem, tecnologia e desenvolvimento local: a central solar da Amareleja

No estudo dos impactos locais das energias renovaveis tem sido dada pouca atencao a tecnologias com menor peso no sistema energetico. Este trabalho procura colmatar esta lacuna, atraves de um estudo de caso sobre a central fotovoltaica da Amareleja, assente em entrevistas com stakeholders e residentes e analise de documentacao. A central tem a particularidade de ser parte de uma iniciativa municipal de desenvolvimento regional assente nas energias renovaveis. Contudo, apesar de um processo de implantacao pouco controverso e de um impacto importante a nivel identitario, nao atingiu muitas das expectativas dos habitantes a nivel economico.

Connecting Food Memories with the Rural: The Case of Portuguese and British Consumers

This chapter aims at exploring the meanings of organic and local foods amongst Portuguese urban and British rural consumers through their food memories. The empirical material draws on about 60 interviews with consumers in both countries. It was possible to identify similar processes through which Portugal and the UK went through across time: the reconfiguration of provisioning systems together with processes of institutional, social and market mobilisation around ‘quality’ food. It is concluded that food memories served, to a certain extent, to overcome the rural–urban divide, as both groups of consumers evoke similar rural images despite positioned in different urban–rural configurations in two different countries. However, consumers use and enact their food memories in everyday food handling and display evocative images of the rural to demarcate what is quality food, ending up reinforcing, instead of totally overriding, the rural–urban divide.