Food, Power, and Agency

This exciting book explores fundamental questions about the operation of power and agency in modern societies. Grounded in the work of Bruno Latour, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel Foucault, it uses food as a lens to examine agency and the political, economic, social, and cultural power which underlies every choice of food and every act of eating.

The book is divided into three parts - Food, Cultural Capital and Cultural Transfer; Food Workers and the Work of Food; Food, Fat and Self – with each of the nine chapters exploring the power of food as well as the power relationships reflected and refracted through food. Featuring contributions from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural studies scholars from around the world, the book offers perspectives from a variety of disciplines and time periods. Case studies range from waiters in 20th century Europe and the United States, to German cuisine and ethnicity in San Francisco after the Gold Rush, Italian cuisine in Japan, tiffin boxes in Mumbai, and 'ultragreasy bureks' and teenage fast food consumption in Slovenia.

By directly engaging with questions of agency and power, the book pushes the field of food studies in new directions. An important read for students and researchers in food studies, food history, anthropology of food, and sociology of food.

Jurgen Martschukat is Professor of History at Erfurt University, Germany
Bryant Simon is Professor of History at Temple University, USA