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Chewing on choice

Brooks, Sally; Burges Watson, Duika L.; Draper, Alizon; Goodman, Michael; Kvalvaag, Heidi; Wills, Wendy

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Authors

Sally Brooks

Duika L. Burges Watson

Alizon Draper

Michael Goodman

Heidi Kvalvaag

Wendy Wills



Contributors

Emma-Jayne Abbots
Editor

Anna Lavis
Editor

Abstract

The concept of ‘individual choice’ has become central to contemporary understandings of the relationship between food, health and well-being. Drawing on four research projects in which the authors have recently been engaged (Brooks 2010, Burges Watson et al. forthcoming, Goodman et al, 2012, Kvalvaag forthcoming), this chapter traces how and why this is so; exploring the multitudinous ways and means that discourses of ‘food choice’ have been deployed and gained political and material ‘real world’ salience in a number of different contexts. It locates ‘choice’ theoretically, as a concept borrowed from neoclassical economics to complement biomedical theories with a thinking subject; and politically, as an indeterminate and ‘slippery’ concept adaptable to shifting policy platforms. The multiple manifestations and consequences of this slipperiness are explored through the cases of: food and nutrition policymaking in the UK over the last 25 years; an international nutrition system generating policies and programmes for ‘beneficiaries’ in the developing world; and the strategies of an increasingly high-profile alternative food movement.

Citation

Brooks, S., Burges Watson, D. L., Draper, A., Goodman, M., Kvalvaag, H., & Wills, W. (2013). Chewing on choice. In E. Abbots, & A. Lavis (Eds.), Why we eat, how we eat : contemporary encounters between foods and bodies (149-168). Ashgate Publishing

Publication Date Jun 1, 2013
Deposit Date Jul 15, 2013
Publicly Available Date Jul 17, 2013
Pages 149-168
Series Title Critical food studies
Book Title Why we eat, how we eat : contemporary encounters between foods and bodies.
Chapter Number 7
Publisher URL http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409447252

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Copyright Statement
Used by permission of the Publishers from ‘Chewing on choice’, in Why we eat, how we eat: contemporary encounters between foods and bodies. eds. E.-J. Abbots and A. Lavis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 149–168. Copyright © 2013




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