Abstract
In this introduction to the special issue on “Foodways and Inequality: Toward a Sociology of Food Culture and Movements,” we describe our path to the sociological study inequality through food, and how the articles included in this special issue fit this framework. The overarching goal of this issue is to present a multifaceted approach to studying food from more cultural and structural perspectives. In particular, the authors take varied approaches to understanding how inequalities shape individual’s experiences with food while also offering possible solutions through a more humanist sociological project around food and foodways. The articles and reviews included in this special issue offer much needed sociological insights into current social problems centering on food such as hunger and exploitation.
Personal Reflexive Statement
The idea for this special issue of Humanity and Society developed over the last few years through a variety of experiences, but one group of experiences stands out for how social inequality is reflected in, not simply studied by, the field of sociology. At several conferences, we noticed how fellow sociologists convened to discuss a myriad of studies on social inequalities, while walking by the hungry in the host cities on their way to numerous gatherings and receptions with plentiful food and beverage options. Sociologists note how social inequality is (re)produced and influences an array of life chances and experiences and suggest a variety of social and policy solutions to combat inequality. Yet, here was social inequality at their hotel doorstep at conferences, literally with signs in hand and oftentimes children and pets as well. This piqued the question of how much does our field understand the centrality of food and foodways to social inequalities. Thus, we organized this special issue to call attention to a void in our study of social inequalities that impacts communities every day without fail. This special issue is an attempt to immerse food and food-related issues and processes deeper into sociological conversations while maintaining the importance of developing a more holistic picture of the problems facing our current food system and people’s experience with it. We would like to thank the contributors and Daina Cheyenne Harvey for the opportunity to edit this special issue. Not infrequently, Southern food now unlocks the rusty gates of race and class, age and sex. On such occasions, a place at the table is like a ringside seat at the historical and ongoing drama of life in the region.
The importance of food to social inequality manifests in many ways in our lives and not restricted to one group or place. As children, we both recall food insecurity in our communities in rural and urban locales, for white and black children, for those with jobs, and those without. As a child, I (Kaitland) did not understand why I was never invited to my best friend’s house for dinner but she, and often her mom and sister, were at my house multiple times a week. Then, one night I had dinner at her house and the only food was boiled hot dogs and a half a bag of chips. It is not that my family did not eat those foods, but they were always part of a larger meal and vegetables were always included. When I went home the next day and asked my mom, she told me that it was hard for them to spend a lot of money on food. It would take years before I finally realized the stories I was reading in textbooks about social inequality and hunger was my childhood best friend’s experience. Hunger is not limited to a homeless person on a city street like I had grown to believe as a child; it was my friend and her family.
At the same time, I was raised in the South with two grandfathers who planted gardens that supplied enough fresh vegetables for them and most of their families to eat all summer. The more industrious members of my family canned or froze the surplus to eat throughout the winter. My interest in food culture in general and Southern food specifically, local food movements, and hunger and obesity began long before I realized I could study those topics in graduate school. My research goals focus on how a region steeped in culinary and gardening traditions continues to suffer from debilitating inequality manifesting across race, class, and gender. As hunger and obesity rates climb, my research aims to examine why and seek possible solutions to those problems now and in the future. Beyond my research, working with food banks in different communities only strengthens my ability to discuss how foodways and inequality are not relegated to life outcomes but reflect life experiences. My work does not stop at policy solutions attached to a study I conduct that may result in long-term structural change as I try to work with people fighting social inequality in the here and now. As our authors and reviewers note in the subsequent pages of this issue, they pursue multiple avenues for effective change around food and inequality in their life’s work as well.
In early childhood, my (Carson) parents were part of what is often described today as the working poor. Both held full-time jobs and were able to afford apartments following their divorce, but the meals often did not reflect what I saw on TV or heard about from friends at school. There were times when I would sit at my little yellow lap table in the floor eating whatever they prepared but noticed their plates were filled with either less food or nonexistent. Later in life, when I found myself living in Charlotte with my father following a promotion and new entrée into the suburban middle class, I would often buy an extra side of food or maybe cookies to share with friends whose small amount of money ran out before their parents could reload their lunch accounts at the end of each month. Despite the free lunch program, many of them attempted to avoid the stigma of being labeled “poor” if they and their families could help it, which meant trying to afford standard lunch prices. Some of these friends were white, others were black or Latino. Some wore name brand clothes, and others had only a few shirts to call their own. Some rode the buses from the suburbs to our junior high, others came from federal housing not far from the school, while a few were known to sleep in cars and shelters. They all avoided mean teachers and loved talking with friends. They all had passions for art, sports, video games, or other interests. They all were managing how inequalities restricted the food on their lunch trays.
A few years after my move to Charlotte, I returned to the rural, mountain community of my early childhood to live with my mother and complete high school. The hunger and poverty in the community had worsened, but my family’s ability to eat improved. When I left for college, I discovered in sociology what these life experiences shaped by inequality were called beyond “tummy aches” and pain by the children, hard luck or bad breaks by the adults, and why they existed beyond blaming supposedly lazy parents or the unfortunate results of flashpan incidents. The inequality surrounding food is so deeply embedded in our everyday lives that we take such durable inequality (see Tilly 1998) as the unfortunate and unchanging reality we must navigate each day. However, a continuing interest and recent expansion of studying the social inequality of food and foodways provides glimpses into understanding these issues and possibly addressing them for future generations.
Toward the Sociological Study Foodways and Inequality
Currently, sociologists are increasingly interested in the study of food and inequality in differing ways from the past. Research on food security and health disparities sheds light on structural issues related to access and food (Hendrickson, Smith, and Eikenberry 2006; Walker, Keane, and Burke 2014). As federal and state politicians continue to dismantle social programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Women, Infants, and Children; and school lunch programs, sociologists including those who study food culture and inequality find themselves in the forefront of stressing to the public and policymakers the importance of these programs for social well-being. It is also essential to examine the effective strategies currently in place by alternative food programs such as food pantries. Food pantries continue to be integral sources of emergency food and existed long before government believed it was their responsibility to help reduce hunger (Levenstein 1993; Poppendieck 1999). The experiences and successes of food pantries to help those in hunger are increasingly important, given the current political climate.
Although a definition of foodways can vary between scholars and academic disciplines, for our purposes, we define foodways as the choices and meaning behind what people eat. By using this conceptualization, we can gain a better understanding of how sociological perspectives can elucidate connections between people and food such as the formation of varying food movements, differing forms of inequality, the politics infiltrating foodways that craft the connection between what people eat, and how people identify themselves through the consumption of specific foodways and food products (Engelhardt 2011). The study of foodways provides insight into broader sociological processes such as how inequality functions around social movements; the connection between identity, memory, and consumption; and the politics behind the production and consumption of cultural products fundamental for survival. The focus on food insecurity and elite consumption, while important, are limited lenses of social inequality, as it leaves a large portion of society unexamined. While a multitude of studies have examined the role of foodways in creating cultural distinctions (Edge 2017; Inness 2006; Kamp 2006) and exploring the increasing problem of hunger (Beuchelt and Virchow 2012; Fox, Hamilton, and Lin 2004), more research is needed to elaborate on the sociological implications of foodways and food movements enmeshed with social inequalities.
The study of food can be divided into two main streams of research: cultural and structural. This special issue offers insight into each stream of research, while recognizing the sociology of food is incomplete without drawing on the intersections between them. Although the cultural dimension of foodways dominates the literature, there is also extensive research on the structural causes of hunger and obesity throughout the United States (Poppendieck 1999, 2010). The importance of hunger and obesity, as well as social inequalities, in food cannot be understated. Although cultural dimensions are important, they are rife with underlying inequalities, impacting the ability to make decisions regarding what one is able to eat or who is preparing that food. Social inequalities are a point of entry for food scholars. By studying food, inequalities become apparent and food is a tool of resistance and identity for those of underprivileged positions (Cairns and Johnston 2015; Edge 2017). Class-based differences surrounding food call into question cultural research on distinction when a large portion of the population is struggling with accessing enough food to survive. This group is not immune to the same desire for healthy, flavorful food, but their daily life is a struggle between healthy fresh food and taste battling with affordability and nutrient dense, often unhealthy food (Cairns and Johnston 2015).
Researching and Reviewing Food, Culture, and Inequality
The four research articles included in this special issue offer insights into the problems underlying food culture and experiences with inequality. Some authors focus on the importance of restoring humanity to the hungry through local food banks and food programming, while others emphasize the role of social inequality and globalization in disadvantaging members of less privileged groups through food culture. Together, these articles offer future directions for research and possible solutions to improve the current problems plaguing our food system and the people who suffer the most because of its inequalities. Reflecting the mission of the Association for Humanist Sociology, the underlying emphasis on more holistic and grounded studies of social issues and processes arise from a common concern of how to improve our food system.
Highly acclaimed chefs can shape popular perceptions of cuisines, while simultaneously including and excluding who’s included in these cuisines. Catarina Passimodo provides a comparison of how celebrity chefs in Peru and the U.S. South reinforce social inequalities by privileging certain aspects of a cuisine over other, less prestigious aspects and puts forth the concept of gastrodiplomacy in her article “‘Our’ Culinary Heritage: Obscuring Inequality by Celebrating Diversity in Peru and the U.S. South.” Her work elaborates on the traditionally lower class dynamics of a food culture excluded by these elite chefs in favor of racial and class hegemonies that connect foodways, culture, place, and power in their cookbooks and contemporary food movements. Passimodo describes how gastrodiplomacy may lead to sharing and ceding space to chefs from a variety of backgrounds to combat the dominate hegemony of mainstream food culture.
Seeking food assistance in times of need is not restricted to governmental programs. Frequently, people look within their own communities to resolve these issues, and food pantries are the resources they often turn to in order to put food on the table. Leslie Hossfeld, Brooke Kelly, Erin O’Donnell, and Julia Waity provide an in-depth example of how communities can utilize food sovereignty to improve local food systems in impoverished areas in their article titled “Food Sovereignty, Food Access, and the Local Food Movement in Southeastern North Carolina.” These authors focus on how one community-based project manages opportunities, barriers, and struggles to improve food sovereignty and access in a low-income and resourced community. Current food policy aimed at reducing hunger and associated health problems often exacerbate other issues in low-income communities by removing agency and culturally appropriating foods. The initiative described by Hossfeld and colleagues focuses on how leadership opportunities within public housing communities and fresh markets offered in close proximity to low-resourced communities can coalesce to restore agency, healthy food, and more equitable access to food despite limited financial resources.
Yvonne Vissing, Joann Gu, Andrea Jones, and Sue Gabriel further this line of research by examining the respect and dignity in food pantry experiences in “Preserving Dignity in the Face of Hunger: A Study of Food Pantry Utilization.” These authors discuss how local food pantries work to accommodate an evolving clientele: families, college students, the elderly, and other groups who are typically unrecognized as growing patrons of food pantries seeking assistance to have enough to eat. Food pantries are sources of sustenance and can also provide their clients with integrity, respect, and hope to counter the stigma surrounding getting a “handout” often diminishes. The efforts of the New England food pantry discussed in Vissing and colleagues’ article provide an example for others across the country of an approach aimed at restoring respect and dignity to the way those facing hunger are treated by these organizations.
Food-related inequality exists beyond access to food, as it also influences who prepares the food. In an example of this work, Jennifer Puentes examines the impact of socioeconomic status on culinary students’ experiences in “Delineating Cultural Boundaries and Debunking the Myth of the Classless Kitchen.” Her work debunks popular narratives describing kitchens as welcoming to all because the skills gained in culinary schools are purportedly the great equalizer. Puentes’s ethnographic account of a culinary school presents a different picture with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds shaping their experiences in culinary school and how their instructors, who impact their future labor market prospects, receive them. Students’ ability to seek out extracurricular experiences broadens their omnivorous taste increasing their likelihood of success in culinary school often requiring balancing classical French techniques and knowledge of omnivorous cuisines. This work sheds light on how students’ ability to access cultural capital impacts their ability to participate in the kitchen and subsequent successes or failures.
Despite our limitation of reviews we could provide in this issue for readers interested in discussions of food, culture, and inequality to consider further, we included reviews of four volumes that provide a broad scope of some recent work in this area. First, Bekah Torcasso Sanchez describes another examination into the inequality of kitchens and restaurants provided in Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre’s Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen. Second, Savannah Larimore elaborates on the important points connecting how multiple pressures placed on SNAP can impact the health and well-being of communities in Judith Bartfeld, Craig Gundersen, Timothy M. Smeeding, and James P. Ziliak’s edited volume SNAP Matters: How Food Stamps Affect Health and Well-being. Third, James Hale elaborates on the politics of school lunch rooms and the social context of children’s food provided in Amy L. Best’s Fast Food Kids: French Fries, Lunch Lines, and Social Ties. Lastly, as wine consumption and the wine industry in the United States have expanded in recent years, Sandra E. Schroer describes James Pennell’s examination of the vintners and vineyards of the Midwest in Local Vino: The Winery Boom in the Heartland.
Together these articles and reviews highlight the intersection of cultural and structural aspects of food and inequality. A picture of modern foodways would be incomplete without drawing on each of these aspects of food culture. Through cookbooks, culinary classes, and food pantries, the authors present us with a breadth of research spanning the United States and South America. The role of social inequality is prevalent in each article, but hope for improvements in the future also exists through collaborations with popular chefs and possibly those they train, restoring dignity to food pantries, and food sovereignty in poor communities. Through this research area, we are given plausible and practical solutions to problems plaguing our modern food system and our society as a whole. We hope this issue sparks new ideas for scholars to tackle how food is central to many studies of inequality, people’s experiences with food, and how food is influenced by policies and practices on multiple levels in our local, state, national, and global communities.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.