Consuming Geographies We Are Where We Eat

Food occupies a seemingly mundane position in our lives, yet the ways we think about shopping, cooking and eating are actually intensely reflexive.
From the relationship of our food intake to our body-shape, to the impact of our tastes upon global food-production regimes, food consumption impacts on our sense of place. "Consuming Geographies" addresses the theoretical debates about identity politics and issues of consumption through an exploration of one of the most universal features of everyday life. We all think place and identity through food: we are "where" we eat.

Food occupies a seemingly mundane position in all our lives, yet the ways we think about shopping, cooking and eating are actually intensely reflexive. The daily pick and mix of our eating habits is one way we experience spatial scale. From the relationship of our food intake to our body-shape, to the impact of our tastes upon global food-production regimes, we all read food consumption as a practice which impacts on our sense of place.Drawing on anthropological, sociological and cultural readings of food consumption, as well as empirical material on shopping, cooking, food technology and the food media, this book demonstrates the importance of space and place in identity formation. We all think place (and) identity through food - we are where we eat!

1. Introduction 2. Body 3. Home 4. Community 5. City 6. Region 7. Nation 8. Global

David Bell is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Staffordshire University and Gill Valentine is a Lecturer in Geography at the University of Sheffield.