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Young girls experiences of good food imperatives in a working class school community: rethinking food desire?

Authors

Fernández, E., Kitching, K. and Horgan, D. 

Year
2021
Journal Name
Cambridge Journal of Education
Category
Journal Article
Keywords
Food education, participatory photo mapping, critical food pedagogy
Project

PEACH - Physical, Emotional, Active, Cognitive Health Project

Full Citation

Fernández, E., Kitching, K. and Horgan, D. (2021) 'Young girls experiences of good food imperatives in a working class school community: rethinking food desire?', Cambridge Journal of Education, 51, pp. 543-561. doi: 10.1080/0305764X.2021.1877618

Link to Publication
https://cora.ucc.ie/server/api/core/bitstreams/77422164-905e-434d-9e4f-c51bf8a4020e/content

Abstract

Education policy internationally positions schools as central sites of intervention on ‘obesity epidemics’, particularly in working class communities. This article presents a moral geographies approach which examines how such obesity-focused healthy food imperatives are experienced in specific places and times. The authors draw on data from a participatory photo mapping exercise with 11-year old girls in a working class school setting in Ireland. Rather than focus on the girls’ food consumption through classed, deficit-based discourses of individual restraint or pleasure, they consider their food desires to be an ethico-political force for connection, identification and potential reconstruction of what constitutes ‘good’ food. The participants were adept at performing officially ‘good’ food knowledge, but also constructed food-based identities and relationships that challenged prevailing, individualised imperatives to ‘make healthy choices’. The findings underline the importance of critical pedagogies of food desire, which could engage factors such as the strengths of family and community food cultures.

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