Class specific food cultures in the Danish society
Author(s): Kia Ditlevsen
Friday 16 | 11:00-11:20
Room: TP43
Session: Lifestyles, consumption, and inequality
“I have also changed food habits. Where one can really feel the social class divide - that’s in the culinary [field]” - Morten Pape, Danish author, 2020
Food consumption is a highly distinctive practice by which class belongings are revealed and reaffirmed (Atkinson and Deeming 2015; Bourdieu 2004; Prieur et al., 2008; Warde 2011). What one eats, the way one eats, one’s taste and habits are embodied expressions of class and are highly inscribed with moral value.
This presentation will present results from a new qualitative research project: “Food as Distinction and Practice” (funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark). The project has produced knowledge about the current cultural expressions of class in food and eating in Denmark. Using material from 60 in-depth interviews and visual data, distinctive features of class specific tastes and practices are explored. 60 people from four distinct social classes have participated in interviews (Underprivileged class; Less privileged class; Cultural fraction of the privileged class; Economic fraction of the privileged class). 30 of the participants have also created visual data for the project by taking photos of their meals.
In this presentation, I will present key classifying dimensions of food consumption – along with consumption practices which have apparently lost their classed specificity and, maybe, their moral valuation. The empirical material will be employed in a discussion of the continued relevance of conceptualizing food consumption in terms of class and legitimate culture (Lamont and Lareau 1988; Prieur and Savage 2011), as well as a discussion of the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ food culture (Sullivan and Katz-Gerro 2007; Warde, Whillans, and Paddock 2019).