3. Sociology Of Food Flashcards
S&P. Traditionally ____ have not been expected to take responsibility for shopping for food or cooking meals. While to this is changing to some extent most studies indicate that ____ continue to take the primary responsibility for cooking meals.
husbands, women
The social and personal theme draws our attention to the ____ ____ and ____ involved in food preparation.
social roles and identities
S&P. From a sociological point of view this has little to do with ____, or even with a simple individual desire on the part of women, but is related to the social roles of ‘mother and wife.
biology
S&P. There are certain _____ (norms) that come with these roles and they tend to shape the behaviour of those people who take on the role.
expectations
S&P. The concept of ____ highlights the fact that the expectations about behaviour associated with social roles may become a part of the ‘self’. They come to feel natural and chosen.
identity
S&P. ____ may arise between husbands and wives if they have different ideas about who should do the cooking (demonstrating that social roles are not cast in stone and may be rejected by individuals as well as changed over time as groups of individuals come to question them).
Conflict
The theme of differences and divisions examines the ____ and ____ of interests that separate groups of individuals.
inequalities and conflicts
D&D. Feminist sociologists have long had an interest in the ways that the social roles of mother and wife have had some negative ____ for women.
consequences
D&D. For example the notion of ‘women’s double-day’ captures the way that many women working in paid employment (perhaps for as many hours as their husbands) are still often expected to take the lion’s share of the ____ labour (including meal preparation).
domestic
D&D. While some people might argue that husbands/fathers have other responsibilities that women do not share (and therefore that there is a complementarity between men and women in the family) sociologists have demonstrated that the time and effort required for many of the male tasks is considerably ____ than those required of women.
less
D&D. In the realm of _____, women are often tasked with shopping as well as everyday cooking. Men when they cook tend to do so at celebratory moments when the food preparation is more highly valued.
cooking
The local and global theme might draw our attention to some of the ____ that is ____ at home.
food, cooked
L&G. It is now not difficult to get all manner of fruit and vegetables out of season. Food is readily ____ a around the world.
transported
L&G. Globalisation is a large scale ____ ____ that has an impact on everyday, local lives.
social process
____ is something all humans share with each other - in that sense it is a cultural universal.
Eating
But the food we eat, how we eat, the meanings that food has for us, and so on differs greatly between different societies and between different groups within societies like Aotearoa/New Zealand - and in that sense food and eating illustrate ____ ____.
cultural diversity
L&G. The earlier discussion on the theme of the local and the global mentioned the role of ____ in the globalisation of society. While McDonalds is just one type of takeaway these restaurants are an example of the trend towards standardised and homogenised models of food production which effectively limit the variety of food choices available to the public.
McDonalds
L&G. McDonalds and other fast food restaurants do this by providing similar foods in all their restaurants _____. Whether you get a Big Mac in Paris or Palmerston North it will taste the same.
around the world
L&G. However it should be noted that the local can exert some _____ - take for example the use of beetroot in McDonalds Kiwiburger.
influence
D&D. It is clearly possible to identify ____ between social groups in terms of the food that they eat. These differences may involve status differences as well as more profound inequalities.
differences
D&D. At the broadest level, differences in what people eat can involve ____. There are some people who just do not get enough food, or not enough food of the right kind.
inequalities
D&D. Food consumption can also lead to inequalities in health - poor diet can lead to ____, ____, or the development of certain diseases (eg. diabetes and tuberculosis).
starvation, malnutrition
D&D. These diseases of diet are not ____ equally amongst the population, for example in this country Maori, Pacific peoples, and working class men and women suffer from these diseases disproportionately.
distributed
D&D. The second element of differences in food consumption refers to the fact that while people in traditional societies might all eat more or less the ____ food, the same cannot be said of societies like our own.
same
D&D. Food has come to be a signifier of ____ ____. People might celebrate birthdays by eating anything from McDonalds to a fine meal at an expensive restaurant.
social status
D&D. Food consumption patterns are based on ____ ____ membership. These differences in food consumption are not simply idiosyncratic - they depend on the social group that people belong to.
social group
D&D. In particular, class, position, ethnicity, occupation and generation are important ____ of the food we eat.
determinants
D&D. The particular food choices that we make help to reinforce ____ ____ between people. What we eat helps to distinguish us from others, eg. some people show their wealth and sophistication by eating at some kinds of restaurants and not others.
social distinctions
S&P. The act of eating together provides a good case study in the relationship between the social and the personal. This activity is not just a simple act of gaining nutrition but has important ____ ____ as well reinforcing the connections between people, showing love, perhaps reinforcing hierarchies in families (e.g. in some cultures boys and men get the most and the best food).
social values
S&P. For some cultures more than others providing food to guests and wider family is an important indicator of ____ and caring for others.
hospitality
S&P. In most cultures providing food for others is an important part of the ____ ____ of being a mother.
social role
S&P. One aspect of the social and personal theme has been called ____. In the realm of food self-rationalisation refers to the way that external pressures around eating are internalised and reproduced by individuals.
self-rationalisation
S&P. In particular the focus is on the kinds of ____ that we receive about how much we should eat, what kinds of food we should eat, what we should feed our children and so on.
messages
S&P. It can be argued that such messages are attempts to ____ our behaviour and to discipline our bodies.
regulate
S&P. For the most part these ____ are couched in terms that tell us changed eating habits are good for us.
messages
S&P. As sociologists we might want to look at this advice and see if the claims that are made are ____ and what effects this has on our experiences of the body.
true
S&P. Self-rationalisation as a trend shares much in common with the rationalisation process associated with McDonaldisation - but here it is turned inward on the self. It involves ____ rather than ____ social pressures.
micro, macro
S&P. We are constantly seeing messages about what we should eat, and how we should look. These messages are particularly directed at ____.
women
This discussion about food raises an important issue within sociology - to what extent are our food choices determined for us by social ____ and how much is about individual ____.
structures, agency
This is often represented in sociology as a tension between structure and agency. As indicated earlier, social structure refers to recurring patterns of ____ ____ by which people are related to each other through social interactions and social groups.
social interaction
So in this sense we are products of our society. But we are also self-conscious - beings we have the ability to participate in and change the society into which we are born. In this respect we exercise some ____ in our lives.
agency
Human agency produces the scope for ____, ____ and ____.
difference, diversity and change
