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Expanding the joys of cooking: How class shapes the emotional experience of family foodwork

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  • Merin Oleschuk

Abstract

The emotional experience of foodwork is often considered along a continuum, where pleasure exists in opposition to labor, and where inequalities restrict pleasure. Analyzing qualitative interviews, recall conversations and cooking observations with 34 primary cooks in families, this article explores how diverse parents experience pleasure through family foodwork. Doing so reveals five conditions facilitating pleasure: time, choice, aesthetic freedom, connection, and appreciation. It then analyzes how access to these conditions is shaped by class inequalities, while being attentive to intersections with gender and race/ethnicity. This analysis reveals how socio‐economic inequalities fashion negative emotional relationships to foodwork by imposing disproportionate stressors on low‐income home cooks, but do not necessarily predict cooking pleasure. Through examining intersections between the sensory and material aspects of foodwork, this article furthers theoretical understanding into how foodwork reinforces gendered, racialized, and classed oppression, while simultaneously identifying how agency and empowerment operate through cooking pleasure for low‐income groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Merin Oleschuk, 2024. "Expanding the joys of cooking: How class shapes the emotional experience of family foodwork," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 885-902, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:31:y:2024:i:3:p:885-902
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12599
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    1. Marjorie L. Devault, 1999. "Comfort and Struggle: Emotion Work in Family Life," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 561(1), pages 52-63, January.
    2. Hilmers, A. & Hilmers, D.C. & Dave, J., 2012. "Neighborhood disparities in access to healthy foods and their effects on environmental justice," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(9), pages 1644-1654.
    3. Mancino, Lisa & Newman, Constance, 2007. "Who Has Time To Cook? How Family Resources Influence Food Preparation," Economic Research Report 55961, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Daniel, Caitlin, 2016. "Economic constraints on taste formation and the true cost of healthy eating," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 34-41.
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