Contexts

sociology for the public

Summer 2014

Volume: 13 | Number: 3

In a special issue on food, we serve up tasty morsels on topics such as food deserts, urban rooftop gardens, gourmet burger joints, and competitive eating.

A Feminist Guide to Cooking

" Sociologist Stacy J. Williams examines cookbooks and articles about cooking written by second-wave feminists. She explains how these activists brought their political ideas to the kitchen and suggested cooking in ways that could work toward greater gender equality. " Read More

Mapping the Flavors of New York City

Artist Hanna Kang-Brown and Sociologist Jacob Kang-Brown explores food as a medium for understanding the U.S. census, representing neighborhood data with spices and using the tasting experience to create a new conversational space in which to talk about the ways in which we identify ourselves and others and how that is shaped by census design. Read More

Food Shopping: A Chore or a Pleasure?

Women perform twice as much “foodwork” as men—shopping, cooking, and planning meals. We often think of food shopping as a chore, but it turns out … Read More

Irish Food Nationalism

The Great Famine of the nineteenth century killed one million Irish citizens, and forced as many to emigrate. Its legacy continues to be felt today … Read More

Eating, Then and Now

Sociologist Tracy E. Ore explores how transformations in American social practices of work and life changed and were changed by what and how people ate at the turn of the century, and how these trends continue today. She reviews Buying into Fair Trade and Repast. Read More

Weighing the Evidence

Sociologist Michael Bader reviews two books, Fat Chance and What's Wrong with Fat?, that hope to reshape the debate about obesity in America. Read More

Labeling to Distract

Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut recently passed legislation requiring companies to label foods that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients, and roughly half of all state legislatures … Read More

Big Business in the School Cafeteria

Sociologist Ivy Ken questions the activities of two non-profit organizations that broker agreements with food companies to provide healthier products for schools. Read More

Revolutionizing Food And Space

Is it possible to develop diversified, sustainable agriculture in cities? Will Allen believes that it is. In 1995 he founded Growing Power, Inc., based on … Read More

The Joy of Cooking?

Sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton offer a critique of the increasingly prevalent message that reforming the food system necessarily entails a return to the kitchen. They argue that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials. Read More