The sociology of food : eating and the place of food in society / Jean-Pierre Poulain ; translated by Augusta Dörr.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A classic text about the social study of food, this is the first English language edition of Jean-Pierre Poulain's seminal work. Tracing the history of food scholarship, The Sociology of Food provides an overview of sociological theory and its relevance to the field of food.Divided into two parts, Poulain begins by exploring the continuities and changes in the modern diet. From the effect of globalization on food production and supply, to evolving cultural responses to food - including cooking and eating practices, the management of consumer anxieties, and concerns over obesity and the medicalization of food - the first part examines how changing food practices have shaped and are shaped by wider social trends. The second part provides an overview of the emergence of food as an academic focus for sociologists and anthropologists. Revealing the obstacles that lay in the way of this new field of study, Poulain shows how the discipline was first established and explains its development over the last forty years. Destined to become a key text for students and scholars, The Sociology of Food makes a major contribution to food studies and sociology. This edition features a brand new chapter focusing on the development of food studies in the English-speaking world and a preface, specifically written for the edition.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures and tables (p. xii)
• Preface (p. xiv)
• By the same author (p. xx)
• Acknowledgments (p. xxi)
• List of abbreviations (p. xxiii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Part 1 Permanent and changing aspects in modern eating practices (p. 5)
• 1 The globalization of the food supply: Delocalization and relocalization (p. 9)
• 1 Food becomes internationalized-through regional specialties (p. 9)
• 2 Local food cultures as champions of identity (p. 11)
• 3 From our rediscovered regions to the realm of the exotic (p. 16)
• 4 From massification to intermixing (p. 18)
• 2 Between the domestic and the economic spheres: The ebb and flow of culinary activity (p. 25)
• 1 The industrialization of the food supply (p. 26)
• 1.1 The industrialization of food production and new forms of self-production (p. 26)
• 1.2 The industrialization of distribution (p. 28)
• 2 Semi-prepared foods and cooking for pleasure (p. 29)
• 3 The restaurant and catering sector (p. 31)
• 4 The eater, the restaurant system, and choice (p. 34)
• 5 Retirement, or the return to the domestic sphere (p. 37)
• 3 The evolution of eating practices (p. 41)
• 1 The theory of gastro-anomie and related debates (p. 41)
• 1.1 An over abundant food supply (p. 41)
• 1.2 The relaxing of social constraints (p. 42)
• 1.3 The multiple discourses on food practices and their contradictory aspects (p. 42)
• 2 The enduring class system (p. 44)
• 3 Changes in eating practices (p. 46)
• 3.1 The simplification of meal structures (p. 47)
• 3.2 Eating between meals (p. 48)
• 3.3 The location of food consumption (p. 50)
• 3.4 Profiles of food days (p. 51)
• 4 The discrepancy between norms and practices (p. 54)
• 5 From anomie to a crisis of legitimacy for the normative system (p. 59)
• 6 Overabundance and the new poverty (p. 61)
• 4 From food risks and food safety to anxiety management (p. 63)
• 1 The misunderstanding of quality (p. 66)
• 2 Risk and modern societies (p. 67)
• 3 Risk: The experts' view, the public's view (p. 68)
• 4 Risk as a constant aspect of human food consumption (p. 70)
• 4.1 The ambivalent nature of human food consumption (p. 71)
• 4.2 Exacerbated risk and its corrosive effect on methods intended to manage the ambivalent nature of human food consumption (p. 75)
• 5 From democratic risk management to the social reconstruction of food (p. 78)
• 5 Obesity and the medicalization of everyday food consumption (p. 81)
• 1 Obesity and socioeconomic status (p. 85)
• 1.1 The nature of the links (p. 85)
• 1.2 Socioeconomic status as a determinant of obesity (p. 88)
• 1.3 The stigmatization of the obese (p. 89)
• 2 The development of obesity and modern eating practices (p. 92)
• 2.1 The epidemiologic transition model (p. 93)
• 2.2 The roles played by food consumption in epidemiologic transition (p. 94)
• 2.3 Modern food practices: A risk factor? (p. 98)
• 3 Is obesity a social construct? (p. 102)
• 3.1 The change in the social representations of obesity and fat (p. 103)
• 3.2 The Paradoxes of the medicalization of obesity (p. 105)
• 4 The dangers of a public health discourse on weight loss (p. 108)
• Part 2 From sociological interest in food to sociologies of food (p. 113)
• 6 The major socio-anthropological movements and their encounters with the "food social fact" (p. 117)
• 1 The functionalist perspective (p. 118)
• 2 The perspective of the anthropology of techniques (p. 120)
• 3 The culturalist perspective (p. 121)
• 4 The structuralist perspective (p. 122)
• 5 Sociological perspectives on food (p. 125)
• 7 Epistemological obstacles (p. 128)
• 1 "Grub": A second-rate subject? (p. 128)
• 2 The exclusive nature of the social fact and the dual tradition of Durkheim and Mauss (p. 130)
• 8 From sociological interest in food to sociologies Of food (p. 136)
• 1 The sociology of food consumption (p. 136)
• 1.1 The determinants of food consumption (p. 137)
• 1.2 Contemporary successors (p. 140)
• 1.3 The sociology of taste (p. 146)
• 2 The "developmentalist" perspective (p. 147)
• 2.1 The influence of Norbert Elias (p. 147)
• 2.2 Cultural materialism (p. 150)
• 3 The H-omnivore or the sociology of the eater (p. 151)
• 3.1 Classificatory thought (p. 154)
• 3.2 The incorporation principle (p. 154)
• 3.3 From the omnivore's paradox to the ambivalent natures of human food consumption (p. 156)
• 3.4 Revisiting incorporation (p. 156)
• 4 The sociology of eaters: An interactionist perspective (p. 161)
• 4.1 Sociality, sociability, and social change (p. 162)
• 4.2 The plural eater (p. 163)
• 4.3 The four types of ethos displayed by eaters (p. 164)
• 4.4 The eating sector (p. 166)
• 9 The sociologies of food and attempts to forge connections (p. 168)
• 1 Revisiting Durkheim (p. 171)
• 1.1 Individualization (p. 172)
• 1.2 Informalization or destructuration (p. 172)
• 1.3 Communitization (communification) (p. 172)
• 1.4 Stylization (p. 173)
• 2 Scale analysis (p. 175)
• 2.1 The macrosocial level (p. 176)
• 2.2 The mesosocial level (p. 176)
• 2.3 The micro-individual level (p. 177)
• 2.4 The biological level (p. 178)
• 10 The sociology of French gastronomy (p. 180)
• 1 The complexity of French gastronomy (p. 181)
• 2 Why is gastronomy French? (p. 184)
• 2.1 Science and gastronomy, the place of food in academic culture (p. 184)
• 2.2 The model of social distinction (p. 186)
• 2.3 Taste as an axis of development (p. 188)
• 2.4 Catholic morality and the spirit of gastronomy (p. 190)
• 2.5 The food critic: An intermediary between two worlds (p. 195)
• 11 The "food social space": A tool for the study of food patterns (p. 195)
• 1 The social space and the dual space of freedom open to human eaters (p. 199)
• 2 The various dimensions of the "food social space" (p. 204)
• 2.1 The "edible" space (p. 205)
• 2.2 The food system (p. 206)
• 2.3 The culinary space (p. 209)
• 2.4 The space of food habits (p. 209)
• 2.5 Eating and the rhythm of time (p. 210)
• 2.6 The social differentiation space (p. 211)
• 3 Food and its social construction (p. 211)
• 3.1 The transition from plant status to food (p. 213)
• 3.2 The transition from animal status to food (p. 214)
• 3.3 Milk and milk derivatives (p. 217)
• 4 A socio-anthropology of food: Aims and issues (p. 219)
• As a conclusion: The call for constructivist positivism (p. 220)
• New chapter: Food studies versus the socio-anthropology of the "food social fact" (p. 223)
• 1 The emergence of cultural studies (p. 223)
• 1.1 The CCCS: A new look at popular cultures (p. 224)
• 1.2 The United States and "French Theory" (p. 225)
• 1.3 Cultural studies and its "Big Bang" (p. 228)
• 2 From cultural studies to food studies (p. 230)
• 2.1 The progress of food studies (p. 231)
• 2.2 Institutional dynamics and domains of thematization (p. 232)
• 3 The challenges of food studies (p. 237)
• Notes (p. 241)
• References (p. 248)
• Index (p. 279)

Author notes provided by Syndetics