Adjusting the Coordination of Parental Foodwork Practices

Abstract

Carrying out proper food practices in family life is seen as the inherent and taken-for-granted responsibility of parents. However, the theoretically solid and comprehensive picture of coordination relating to parental food practices is missing. This study aims to map the coordination of cooking-related practices in today’s hurried family life. By applying practice theory, we employ the concept of foodwork as referring to a bundle of cooking-related practices. The coordination of foodwork is explored through material arrangements, temporal activities and interpersonal relationships in the theoretical part of the study. The empirical analysis utilises multiform qualitative data consisting of cooking videos shot by five Finnish families for one week and interviews with the families. The concept of adjustments is developed through the data analysis to provide a nuanced understanding of how parents reflectively and unreflectively integrate their foodwork into inevitable ongoing changes of everyday life. The study elaborates on the coordination of parental foodwork defining six adjustment themes: appropriateness, sequences, synchronisation, duties, significance and acceptance. Themes illustrate continuous, temporal, material and interpersonal adjustments of foodwork. As a result, the study constructs the comprehensive understanding of parental foodwork by providing novel, theoretically and empirically elaborated and interrelated concepts for future studies. The concept of foodwork and themes of adjustment enable a topical and multidimensional approach to identify and interpret the complex coordination of practices, what, for example, the change towards healthier and more sustainable cooking and eating can provoke in households and a family life.