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Right Taste, Wrong Place’: Local Food Cultures, (Dis)identification and the Formation of Middle-class Identity

Cappellini, B.; Parsons, E.; Harman, V.

Right Taste, Wrong Place’: Local Food Cultures, (Dis)identification and the Formation of Middle-class Identity Thumbnail


Authors

E. Parsons

V. Harman



Abstract

This article investigates how culinary taste contributes to the formation of middle class identity in a working class context in the UK. We explore practices of food consumption among a group of individuals working at a UK university located in a working class city. We find a rather limited and discrepant cosmopolitanism, in which culinary practices are evaluated in terms of those worth engaging in, and those not worth engaging in, based on their ‘user friendliness’ for cosmopolitan middle class dispositions. Depictions of the local food culture as lacking are also dominant, used as a negative ground against which these dispositions are hierarchically formulated. Here middle class culinary tastes seem to be driven by disengagement with the wrong sort of place and a relatively closed alignment with the ‘proper’ and the ‘safe’ rather than by any open creative individuality.

Citation

Cappellini, B., Parsons, E., & Harman, V. (2015). Right Taste, Wrong Place’: Local Food Cultures, (Dis)identification and the Formation of Middle-class Identity. Sociology, 50(6), 1089-1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515593033

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 20, 2015
Online Publication Date Aug 3, 2015
Publication Date Aug 3, 2015
Deposit Date Nov 19, 2019
Publicly Available Date Nov 20, 2019
Journal Sociology
Print ISSN 0038-0385
Electronic ISSN 1469-8684
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 50
Issue 6
Pages 1089-1105
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515593033
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1277083
Related Public URLs https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515593033

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Accepted Journal Article (292 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
Cappellini, B., Parsons, E. & Harman, V. (2016). Right Taste, Wrong Place’ Local Food Cultures, (Dis)identification and the Formation of Middle-class Identity. Sociology 50(6): 1089-1105. Copyright © 2015 The Author(s). DOI: 10.1177/0038038515593033






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