Bittersweet: Living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Geosciences
Abstract
My PhD thesis showed that sugar is central to people's social relationships and sense of place, and can be reconceptualised as a substance of kinship and relatedness (Carsten 1995, 2019; Strathern 1988), changing our understandings of what it means to be related in contemporary Scotland. At a time when sugar has become the object of media attention and vitriol, and in a setting where national identities are entangled with stereotypes of 'infamous' eating practices and high rates of obesity (Knight, 2016), sugar consumption practices offer a unique window onto tensions around eating, parenthood and moral responsibilities for health.
Rather than taking an approach that seeks to identify barriers to healthy eating, my doctoral work offers insights into why and how people consume sugar, and in doing so shows how people balance ideas about health with other kinds of priorities and responsibilities. During a 13-month ethnography in an Edinburgh neighbourhood, I carried out participant observation in the classrooms, dining halls and playgrounds of two primary schools. I accompanied different families through several areas of their everyday lives (home, school, medical spaces, sites of consumption and leisure), and complemented this with in-depth interviews with parents, teachers and head teachers. This ethnographic and relational approach allowed me to form a detailed picture of their patterns of consumption, relationship dynamics and concerns.
Bringing together theories of consumption, kinship, health, pleasure and ethics, my PhD research reveals the ethical problems that sugar consumption poses to individuals and institutions, and sugar's role in marking out relationships as close or distant, authoritative or permissive, and spaces as public or private. A key finding from my research is that sugar is marked out as by educational and medical institutions as bad - for individual health and bodies. Yet sugar is also marked out as good - for social bonding, for indexing intimacy, for recognition, compensation, and for marking out the meanings of particular times, spaces, types of relationship, and the kind of authority that infuses them. I developed the concept of 'living with sugar' to describe how people negotiate the structural over-availability of sugar, the social and commercial pressures to consume sugar, the links between sugar and place, and the everyday ethics involved in balancing health and pleasure. In doing so I make significant theoretical contributions to wider debates beyond the anthropology of Britain, to current theories of kinship, exchange, 'ordinary' ethics, and pleasure.
My work has significance for policymakers, schools, parents and the wider public. In the context of a cost of living crisis, it is more pressing than ever to disseminate the findings from this study. The fellowship would help me develop my publication record and academic profile, build networks in Geography - bridging gaps between the Cultural and Historical Geography, and Population Health and Place groups at Edinburgh - and other research groups (e.g. FRiED), and create impact opportunities. As one of the UK's emerging hubs for food studies, Edinburgh is an obvious choice, and will allow me to pursue my work with FRiED, who have been instrumental in advising on the Scottish Government's 'Good Food Nation' approach. Moreover, moving to Geography will enable me to expand my analytical toolbox by engaging with geographical approaches to everyday consumption. This will allow me to develop notions of place and spatial patterns of consumption ethnographically present, yet undertheorized in my PhD, and to develop an interdisciplinary approach and networks. A stronger focus on place and space will benefit my work, enabling a deeper analysis of people's experiences of class and spatial inequalities through the lens of consumption.
Rather than taking an approach that seeks to identify barriers to healthy eating, my doctoral work offers insights into why and how people consume sugar, and in doing so shows how people balance ideas about health with other kinds of priorities and responsibilities. During a 13-month ethnography in an Edinburgh neighbourhood, I carried out participant observation in the classrooms, dining halls and playgrounds of two primary schools. I accompanied different families through several areas of their everyday lives (home, school, medical spaces, sites of consumption and leisure), and complemented this with in-depth interviews with parents, teachers and head teachers. This ethnographic and relational approach allowed me to form a detailed picture of their patterns of consumption, relationship dynamics and concerns.
Bringing together theories of consumption, kinship, health, pleasure and ethics, my PhD research reveals the ethical problems that sugar consumption poses to individuals and institutions, and sugar's role in marking out relationships as close or distant, authoritative or permissive, and spaces as public or private. A key finding from my research is that sugar is marked out as by educational and medical institutions as bad - for individual health and bodies. Yet sugar is also marked out as good - for social bonding, for indexing intimacy, for recognition, compensation, and for marking out the meanings of particular times, spaces, types of relationship, and the kind of authority that infuses them. I developed the concept of 'living with sugar' to describe how people negotiate the structural over-availability of sugar, the social and commercial pressures to consume sugar, the links between sugar and place, and the everyday ethics involved in balancing health and pleasure. In doing so I make significant theoretical contributions to wider debates beyond the anthropology of Britain, to current theories of kinship, exchange, 'ordinary' ethics, and pleasure.
My work has significance for policymakers, schools, parents and the wider public. In the context of a cost of living crisis, it is more pressing than ever to disseminate the findings from this study. The fellowship would help me develop my publication record and academic profile, build networks in Geography - bridging gaps between the Cultural and Historical Geography, and Population Health and Place groups at Edinburgh - and other research groups (e.g. FRiED), and create impact opportunities. As one of the UK's emerging hubs for food studies, Edinburgh is an obvious choice, and will allow me to pursue my work with FRiED, who have been instrumental in advising on the Scottish Government's 'Good Food Nation' approach. Moreover, moving to Geography will enable me to expand my analytical toolbox by engaging with geographical approaches to everyday consumption. This will allow me to develop notions of place and spatial patterns of consumption ethnographically present, yet undertheorized in my PhD, and to develop an interdisciplinary approach and networks. A stronger focus on place and space will benefit my work, enabling a deeper analysis of people's experiences of class and spatial inequalities through the lens of consumption.
