The political morality of food: discourses, contestation and alternative consumption

Anthropology and sociology have been keen to show that consumption is a social and moral field, and that consumer practices are part of an ongoing process of negotiation of social classifications and hierarchies. Food consumption in particular has been associated with symbolically mediated notions of order (Douglas and Isherwood 1979). We know that particular foods are identified with annual festivities, set apart for specific categories of people, deployed to indicate indulgence or self-restraint, to declare one’s own beliefs and to signify one’s place in the community. While there may be no essential national food, food consumption has been implicated in