FOOD AND SOCIETY

Chapter 1

Understanding Human Behavior

from Sociological Perspectives
Learning Objective

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Types of Society
1.3 Structural Interactionism
1.4 Symbolic Interactionism
Introduction

• Food studies is an emerging interdisciplinary of study

that examine the complex relationships among food,
culture and society from numerous disciplines in the
humanities, social sciences and sciences.
• Food studies is not the study of food itself; it is
different from more traditional food-related areas of
study such as agricultural science, nutrition, culinary
arts, and gastronomy in that it deals with more than
simple production, consumption, and aesthetic
appreciation of food.
Introduction (cont..)

• It is the study of food and its relationship to

the human experience.
• This relationship is examined from a variety of
perspectives lending a multidisciplinary aspect
to this field encompassing areas such as, art,
sociology, education, economics, health, social
justice literature, anthropology, and history.
Introduction (cont..)

• Food studies look at people’s relationship with

food and reveals an abundance of information
about them.
• Food choices expose a group or a person’s
beliefs, passion, background knowledge,
assumptions and personalities.
• Food choices tell stories of families migrations,
assimilation, resistance, changes over times,
and personal as well as group identity.
Introduction (cont..)

• Food studies can challenge us to look deeply

into the common daily occurrence of eating
and find deeper meaning in this ordinary
practice.
• It can help us understand ourselves and others
better.
• It can help debunk stereotypes and promote
acceptance across individuals and groups.
Food

• Food as defined as any substance that

provides the nutrients necessary to maintain
life and growth when ingested.
• When most animals feed, they repeatedly
consume those foods necessary for their well-
being, and they do so in similar manner at
each feeding. Humans, however, do not feed.
They eat.
Eating is distinguished from feeding by the
ways humans use food
• Humans not only gather food or hunt food, but they
also cultivate plants and raise livestock.
– Agriculture means that some foods are regularly available,
alleviating hand-to-mouth sustenance.
– This permits the development of specific customs
associated with foods that are the foundation of the diet,
such as wheat or rice.
– Humans create complex rules, commonly called manners
about how food is to be eaten.
– Eating is distinguished from feeding by the ways humans
use food.
Eating is distinguished from feeding by the
ways humans use food (cont..)
• Humans also cook, softening tough foods,
including raw grains and meats, and reducing
toxic substances in other items, such as certain
root vegetables.
• This greatly expand the number and variety of
edible substances available.
• Choosing foods to combine with other foods
follows, and prompts rules regarding what can
be eaten with what and creating the meal.
Eating is distinguished from feeding by the
ways humans use food (cont..)
• Humans use utensils to eat meals and institute
complex rules, commonly called manners,
about how meals are consumed.
• And significantly, humans share food.
Standards for who may dine with whom in
each situation are well-defined.
The term food habits (also called food
culture or foodways) refers to:
• The ways in which humans use food, including
everything from how it selected, obtained,
and distributed to who prepares it, serves it,
and eat it.
• The significance of this process is unique to
humankind.
The term food habits (also called food
culture or foodways) refers to: (cont..)
• Why don’t people simply feed on the diet of
our primitive ancestors, surviving on foraged
fruits, vegetables, grains, and the occasional
insect or small mammal thrown in for protein?
Omnivore’s Paradox

• Humans are omnivorous, meaning that they can consume and

digests a wide selection of plants and animals found in their
surroundings:
– The primary advantage to this is that they can adapt to nearly all
earthly environments.
– The disadvantage is that no single food provides the nutrition
necessary for survival.
– Human must be flexible enough to eat a variety of items sufficient for
physical growth and maintenance, yet cautious enough not to
randomly ingest foods that are physiologically harmful and, possibly,
fatal.
– This dilemma, the need to experiment combined with the need for
conservatism, is known as the omnivore’s paradox.
Omnivore’s Paradox (cont..)

• It results in two contradictory psychological impulses regarding

diet:
– The first is an attraction to new foods
– The second is a preference for familiar foods
• The food habits developed by a group provide a framework
that reduces the anxiety produced by these opposing desires.
• Rules about which foods are edible, how they are procured
and cooked safely, how they should taste, and when they
should be consumed provide guidelines for both
experimentation and conservatism through ritual and
repetition.
Self identity

• The choice of foods to ingest is further

complicated, however, by another
psychological concept regarding eating-the
incorporation of food.
• In other it is the consumption of the food.
• Consumption is understood as equaling
conversion of a food and its nutrients into a
human body.
Self identity (cont..)

• For many people, incorporation is not only

physical but associative as well.
• It is the fundamental nature of the food
absorbed by a person, conveyed by the
proverbial phrase “you are what you eat”.
• It its most direct interpretation it is the
physical properties of a food expressed
through incorporation.
Self identity (cont..)

• Some Asian Indians eat walnut to improve their

brain, and weight lifters may dine on rare meat
to build muscle.
• It is small step from incorporating the traits
associated with a specific food to making
assumptions about a total diet.
• The correlation between what people eat, how
others perceive them, and how they
characterize themselves is striking.
Food choice is, in fact:

• Influence by self-identity, a process whereby the food likes or

dislikes of someone else are accepted and internalized as
personal preferences.
• Children choose foods eaten by admired adults, fictional
characters, peers and especially older siblings.
• Group approval or disapproval of a food can also condition a
person’s acceptance or rejection.
• This may explain relatively unpalatable items, such as chili
peppers or unsweetened coffee, are enjoyed if introduced
through socially mediated events, such as family meals or
workplace snack breaks.
Society

• Although humans have established many types of

societies throughout history, sociologists and
anthropologists (experts who study early and tribal
cultures) usually refer to six basic types of societies,
each defined by its level of technology.
• Sociologists define society as the people who interact
in such a way as to share a common culture.
• The cultural bond may be ethnic or racial, based on
gender, or due to shared beliefs, values, and activities.
Society (cont..)

• The term society can also have a geographic

meaning and refer to people who share a
common culture in a particular location.
• For example, people living in artic climates
developed different cultures from those living
in desert cultures.
Horticultural societies

• Pastoral societies rely on domesticating animals.

• Horticultural society rely on cultivating fruits,
vegetables, and plants.
• These societies first appeared in different parts of
the planet about the same time as pastoral
societies.
• Horticultural societies had to be mobile.
• Depletion of the land’s resources or dwindling water
supplies, for example, forced the people to leave.
Agricultural societies

• Use technological advance to cultivate crops

(especially grains like wheat, rice, corn, and
barley) over a large area.
• Sociologists use the phrase agricultural
revolution to refer to the technological
changes that occurred as long as 8,500 years
ago that led to cultivating crops and raising
farm animals.
Feudal societies

• From the 9th to 15th centuries, feudalism was a form of

society based on ownership of land.
• Unlike today’s farmers, vassals under feudalism were
bound to cultivating their lord’s land.
• In exchange for military protection, the lords exploited
the peasants into providing food, crops, crafts,
homage, and other services to the owner of the land.
• The caste system of feudalism was often
multigenerational; the families of peasants may have
cultivated their lord’s land for generations.
Feudal societies (cont..)

• Between the 14th and 16th centuries, a new economic

system emerged that began to replace feudalism.
• Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free
market, in which the means of production are
privately owned.
• Europe’s exploration of the Americas served as one
impetus for the development of capitalism.
• The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices
stimulated great commercial activity in Europe.
Industrial societies

• Based on using machines (particularly fuel-driven ones) to

produce goods.
• Sociologists refer to the period during the 18th century
when the production of goods in mechanized factories
began as the industrial revolution.
• The industrial revolution appeared first in Britain, and then
quickly spread to the rest of the world.
• The industrial revolution also saw to the development of
bureaucratic forms of organization, complete with written
rules, job descriptions, impersonal positions, and
hierarchical methods of management.
Post industrial societies

• Sociologists note that with the advent of the computer

microchip, the world is witnessing a technological
revolution.
• This revolution is creating a postindustrial society based on
information, knowledge, and the selling of services.
• That is, rather than being driven by the factory production
of goods, society is being shaped by the human mind,
aided by computer technology.
• Although factories will always exists, the key to wealth and
power seems to lie in the ability to generate, store,
manipulate, and sell information.
Individual and group from sociological
perspectives
• Sociology is a science task to describe how
social system work.
• Every scientist carries in his or her head a model
of the subject on which he or she is working- a
sort of mental map how it is put together.
• A sociological model then is a description in
general terms of the way a particular system
works.
Theory

• A sociologist’s theories will always be based

on the model that he or she believes is more
accurate than any other.
• A theory is an explanation offered to account
for a group of facts or phenomena.
• A theory is more limited and precise, and
often it can be proved wrong.
Model

• Much broader than the theories that it

generates.
• A model can be called incomplete, misleading
or unproductive, but it can’t be proved wrong.
Theory vs model

• The belief that diseases are caused by germs is a model on which

theories about the causes of particular diseases (e.g. diphtheria
or smallpox) are based.
• The model encourages the scientist to search for specific germs
and to control particular diseases by killing the germs that cause
them.
• The germ model has been useful in stimulating scientific
discoveries, but it is not helpful to the scientist who is trying to
explain illness that are caused by poor diet or by chemical or
radiation poisoning.
• Therefore, while models are important, we pay a price if we hold
to only one model and ignores all other possible models.
Theory vs model (cont..)

• Since different schools of sociology generally fight

about the merits of the models they favor, a brief
introduction to these models will also serve as
introduction to the main school of sociological
thought and controversies that has been arisen
within the science of sociology over the years.
• The three most important models and the
perspectives based on them are structural
functionalism, the conflict model and the symbolic
interactionalism.
Structural functionalism

• Is a sociological theory
that attempts to explain
why society functions the
way it does by focusing
on the relationships
between the various
social institutions that
make up society (e.g.,
government, law,
education, religion, etc).
Structural functionalism (cont..)

• Is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex

system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and
stability.
Structural functionalism (cont..)

• Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its

constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions.
• It presents these parts of society as “organ” that work toward the proper
functioning of the “body” as a whole.
Conflict theory

• That views in society in a struggle for scarce

resources.
• So what is scarce?
• Two main concerns for conflict theorist are
economic and power!
• Acknowledge that we live in an unequal
society.
Why?

• It could be because there is not enough ‘stuff’

to go around.
• Or it could be because those with the ‘stuff’
don’t want to let go of it.
• In either case conflict theory suggests that
we’re all struggling for more ‘stuff’. Whether
that ‘stuff’ is power in a marriage/ life/
establishment or wealth in the world.
Modern conflict theorist

• Often look at the inequality of a capitalist

economic system.
• Such system breeds inequality, as it rewards
some at the expense of others.
• Once you have power, you want to keep it. For
this reason, the wealthy, even if their actions
puts other at disadvantage.
Modern conflict theorist (cont..)

• The essence of conflict theory suggests that a pyramid

structure of power and wealth exists in society.
• The elite at the top of the pyramid determine the rules
of those below them.
• Under such a system, laws, institutions support their
authority.
• If you believe that discrimination, ageism, sexism,
racism, and classism occur in society because some
people have the power to promote their desires over
others’, then you think like a conflict theorist.
Social institutions

• Family • Are critical for society to

• Economy function properly.
• Educational system • Understanding how
• Political system these and other social
institution work in a
society is of great
interest to functionalist.
Theory of symbolic interactionism

• Is a theoretical framework that focuses on

how individual interactions between people
who influence them and how these
interactions can impact society.
• Symbolic interactionism is primarily a micro
approach to sociology because it is concerned
with the individual’s role in creating society.
Symbolic interactionism

• The use of “symbols,” such as words, gestures,

body language, and facial expressions,
influence how people select food. Our actions
communicate meaning.
• It is a study on how we make sense out of our
life!
Symbolic interactionism (cont..)

• For example, if you’re having a “bad day” what

does that mean?
• One student once told me he had a “bad day”
every time he eats spicy food.
• It that is the case, could such a definition of
reality influence how you behave toward others
on your job or in the classroom?
• How might his “bad day” influence the “days” of
others?
Symbolic interactionism (cont..)

• Interactionists constantly seek to understand

how small interactions influence the larger
society.
• Taking further example of how nice food serve
during wedding reception or feast may
influence the guests.
Comparing the theoretical paradigms