Project Details for the Food Matters Study

Fish Supermarket

How, what, where, when and with whom we eat have changed dramatically during the latter half of the twentieth century. Furthermore, our relationship with food, along with its consumption, continues to alter apace, and this is a topic of considerable public interest, not least because of the health and environmental anxieties associated with contemporary diets and eating practices. Our eating habits and diets are influenced by broader social, economic, technological and cultural shifts, and yet at the same time, they are emblematic and representative of these factors. As society, social values and social organisations change, so do our eating practices and subjective experiences of food and eating. The social phenomenon of food and eating, therefore, provides a fascinating way into exploring socio-cultural change more generally, and a specific phenomenon through which to explore the ways in which social change occurs across multiple levels of everyday life. This research therefore aims to explore experiences of food and eating across the life course in the second half of the twentieth century by situating them within a socio-historical context.

To do this, an in-depth socio-historical case study of changes in food and eating related practices in the English city of York will be undertaken. The focus on one city will permit a detailed exploration of many interacting facets of food and eating. A further strength of the research is that it will adopt a 'mixed methods' approach with both quantitative and qualitative research being undertaken. This will be achieved through longitudinal quantitative analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study and the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. The statistical findings will be complemented by the analysis of qualitative data, such as food diaries and letters which are stored at the Mass Observation Archive; this will also offer qualitative information about another cohort that is not available statistically. The analysis of food related policy documents will further contextualize the statistical information. Within York itself, documentary sources such food related artefacts, e.g. menus, cookery books, and pamphlets, will be examined. The city of York is rich in such historical sources thanks to the York Castle Museum, which houses a range of materials used in 'everyday' life, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which supports a library of local documentation. Fifteen interviews will be undertaken with those involved in food production, retailing, and food and health related polices in order to glean the variety of perspectives and priorities of those with vested interests in food and eating practices. A detailed description of the changing nature and location of food producers, retailers, restaurants, cafes, markets and so on, within York will be also carried out in order to further contextualize, and indeed localize, the changes that may be empirically observed. Fifteen interviews with key stakeholders and 12 intergenerational focus groups with local residents will also be conducted. The age span of the groups will be from 7 years to over 76.

The analysis and integration of such varied types of data represents a significant methodological and conceptual challenge. For this reason, the applicants will draw on work on complexity theory to guide the analysis and interpretation of the data. Recent work on complexity theory within the social sciences has demonstrated the need for, and the ways in which, data from various levels of analysis can be effectively integrated in order to reveal the ways in which contexts permeate actions and vice versa.

In sum, the study will produce a sociologically informed, multi-method case study of changes in food and eating related practices in the city of York. The findings are likely to be of interest to academics, policy makers and the general public.