Sociological Perspectives on Food, Culture, and Work
Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism focuses so strongly on the commodity itself that other aspects of the social context are ignored. Commodity fetishism obscures the true social relationships involved in making a product. Example: Chocolate. Many workers in the Western African cocoa industry are children, and a significant percentage of them are enslaved.
The Durkheimian tradition tends to focus on understanding how society comes together to function as a cohesive whole. Durkheim emphasized how food brings us together and acts as a totem, creating a sense of social cohesion. Food as a totem represents society. Example: Thanksgiving Turkey.
Culture: Shared Meanings and Practices
Culture encompasses systems of meanings that are shared by members of a group. It includes both material and non-material elements. The food we eat for lunch is an aspect of our material culture. The manner in which we eat it is shaped by the norms, values, and symbols that make up non-material culture.
Norms: Guiding Everyday Behavior
Norms refer to the informal, but accepted ways of doing things, which guide our everyday behavior. Norms are visible when they are broken, because that creates outrage.
Values: Beliefs About Right and Wrong
Non-material values are beliefs held by individuals or groups about what is right and wrong, important and not important.
Values often inform social norms and guide us in our actions, interactions, and decision-making.
Cultural Relativism: Understanding Different Cultures
Cultural relativism is the principle of understanding an individual’s beliefs, feelings, and behavior in relation to their culture.
Food is a material good because it is necessary for our everyday survival and is enmeshed within capitalist economies. It is also a cultural symbol inscribed with rich personal and collective significance.
A micro approach can reveal food meanings and rituals within a specific cultural context.
A macro approach is useful for understanding broader food system issues, such as the industrial processes that lead certain products to end up on a supermarket shelf.
Work and Identity
Work is an important aspect of people’s identity, as well as a key source of social relationships. Depending on the work we do, we might feel proud or accomplished.
One of the most influential sociological approaches to work has been Marx’s writings on capitalism, class, and wage labor.
His analysis focused on two social classes: workers (proletariat) and owners (bourgeoisie/capitalist). In an economic system where workers do not own or control the fruits of their own labor, they are alienated from their work, since it is the source of profits for the capitalist class. Alienation refers to the feelings of estrangement associated with work under capitalist conditions.
Marx suggested that the growing gap between workers and owners would lead to social revolutions. One factor explaining the relative acceptance of the status quo is the importance of commonly held ideology. Ideology can refer to individual beliefs, but for Marx it makes an explicit link between ideology and the power held and used by the capitalist class. It is a set of ideas that are used to justify inequality, exploitation, and sustain domination. Ideology is recognized when it makes inequality appear to be an inevitable outcome of the economic elite. Hegemony is related to ideology. It is the belief that in an equal and meritocratic society people earn what they deserve, which has become common sense.
McDonaldization: The Fast-Food Model
McDonaldization is the process by which the principles of fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society:
- Efficiency: The effort to discover the best possible means to whatever end is desired.
- Calculability: Efforts to measure all elements in the production process.
- Predictability: Ensures that settings and procedures are the same by time and place.
- Control: Workers are controlled by technology.