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- Neuman, Nicklas, 1987-
(author)
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An imagined culinary community : On gender and class in “Sweden – the new culinary nation”
- 2016
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper critically analyses how a Swedish culinary identity is produced and how this production intersects with gender and class. The analysis builds on observational data and texts published online by actors with a mission to promote Swedish food culture. A nation is an “imagined community” (Anderson, [1983] 2006). It is indeed a community, but of a very particular form due to its comprehensiveness that inevitably makes it impossible for all of its members to be able to know about each other and to interact. This incomprehensible size results in nation-building practices connecting people—culturally and geographically distant from each other—to imagine common concerns and values; public stories are produced that construct shared stories in the minds of people. Feminists have further shown how national identity productions are profoundly intertwined with symbolic constructions of femininity and masculinity, and on functions allocated to men and women for the good of the nation. Last but not least, the particular production of national culinary excellence is also a story of class, deriving from gastronomic legacies of the pre-Revolution French aristocracy and post-Revolution bourgeoisie. During a time in which Swedish politicians have used explicitly nationalist statements with tremendous caution—because of a general fear to be interpreted as flirting with the nationalist party—food have seemed to persist as a safe space to celebrate national pride. “Sweden – the new culinary nation” is a political vision aiming to promote Sweden as a country of culinary excellence, with the long-term purposes of creating more jobs, increasing revenues for people in all the food and hospitality industries (whether urban or rural) and stimulating economic growth. My analysis shows how this promoted image builds on assumptions of Swedish traditions and authenticity and that the culinary nation of Sweden is a country in which all people, as part of an imagined culinary community, are equally important. The top chefs and the leading restaurants might be the spearhead, but the conveyed message is that “we are all in it together” and everybody, from near and far, are welcome to enjoy our tremendous food culture. However, it is this rhetoric of a seemingly inclusive and democratized political vision that I will discuss and argue to be profoundly gendered and classed.
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2. |
- Neuman, Nicklas, 1987-
(author)
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Måltidssocialitetens kedja : Om måltidens socialitet bortom commensality [The chain of meal sociality: On the sociality of the meal beyond commensality]
- 2016
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I vad som ännu är ett opublicerat manuskript har jag och mina medförfattare visat hur intervjuade män i Sverige (22-88 år gamla) uttrycker matens socialitet på ett sätt som går bortom själva måltidssituationen och som visar på nya former av manlig socialitet; med andra män, med kvinnor och med barn (Neuman, Gottzén & Fjellström, kommande).Det inom måltidsforskningen etablerade begreppet ”commensality” definieras i korthet som ”att dela mat och dela bord”. Begreppets sociala funktion handlar å ena sidan om gemenskapsbyggande men lika mycket om exkludering. Det vilar på ett teoretiskt antagande om att vi blir mer lika de vi äter tillsammans med. Vidare finns det en klart könskodad dynamik i commensality – det lyfts inte alltid inom forskningen, men jag menar att den alltid finns där. Väldigt förenklat kan vi säga att den könade dynamiken länge varit att en kvinna i hemmet burit (huvud)ansvaret för allt det arbete som ligger till grund för vad som i slutänden blir en måltid. Med all förberedelse avklarad delas en måltid med minst en annan person. Det ”sociala”, verkar forskare mena, är därför ätandet. Arbetet dessförinnan är något annat, eller har i alla fall inte fått sitt berättigande erkännande som något annat. Men en social handling är mer än dess handlande i direkt interaktion med andra människor. En människa kan genomföra en social handling även i ensamhet, och Collins (2004, p. 6) menar att ”they generally do so because their minds and bodies are charged with results of past situational encounters, and their solitary action is social insofar as it aims at and comes from communicating with other persons”. Givet att handlingen, även i ensamhet, är en konsekvens av, och en förberedelse inför, en social interaktion så är den per definition social.Detta för oss in på arbetet som föregår måltiden. Jag kallar detta ”måltidssocialitetens kedja”. Som jag inledde med att säga så har idén om denna kedja väckts ur mina intervjudata med män i Sverige. Deras uttryck för det sociala värdet i matlagningen – för ens eget självuppfyllande, för andra och tillsammans med andra – visar på en maskulinitet i ständig förändring. Och när det gäller enskilda länkar i måltidssocialitetens kedja är det framför allt matlagandet tillsammans med andra som kommit att intressera mig. Människor träffas och slänger ihop en måltid tillsammans. Två-tre vänner kanske träffas utanför affären; de handlar och delar kostnaden, de lagar allt tillsammans och de äter. Som aktivitet ter den sig kanske banal. Men givet måltidsstrukturer i västerlandets historia, där värden tagit ansvar för allt och bjudit in gästen till ett dukat bord (och förväntat sig detsamma när hen sedan stått på tur som gäst), så framstår denna aktivitet som ett nytt fenomen. Ett fenomen som berör sociologiska frågor om social interaktion, inkludering och exkludering (makt), vardagslivets estetisering, den privata sfärens gränsupplösning och genusrelationer. Referenser:Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Neuman, N., Gottzén, L., & Fjellström, C. (kommande). Masculinity and the sociality of cooking in men’s everyday lives. Artikel under granskning.
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3. |
- Neuman, Nicklas, 1987-
(author)
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Stories of masculinity, gender equality, and culinary progress : On foodwork, cooking, and men in Sweden
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The general aim of this thesis is to use foodwork and cooking in Sweden as a way to better understand theoretical questions about men and masculinities. Paper I discusses how an increased public interest in elaborate cooking and gastronomy in Sweden, a country with a cultural idealization of gender equality, could explain why men in Sweden assume responsibilities for domestic cooking without feeling emasculated. Papers II, III and IV draw on interviews with 31 men from 22 to 88 years of age and with different levels of interest in food. Paper II shows how domestic foodwork and cooking are associated with ideas of Swedish progress in terms of gender equality and culinary skills. Paper III demonstrates further that domestic cooking is not only a responsibility which men assume, but also a way of being sociable with friends, partners and children. Thus, both papers II and III challenge the idea that men only cook at home if they enjoy it. The data rather indicate that domestic foodwork responsibilities are a cultural expectation of men in Sweden, ingrained in desirable masculine practices. Paper IV explores men’s responses to media representations of food. The interviewed men responded to these representations with indifference, pragmatism, irony, and at times even hostility. In general, the responses are based on gender and age-differentiated taste distinctions and notions of masculine and culinary excess. Paper V uses a mix of texts (81 online texts and two magazines) and observations from the food fairs GastroNord (2014 and 2016), Mitt kök-mässan (2014) and the chef competition Bocuse d’Or Europe (2014) complemented with pictures and videos. I argue that a Swedish culinary community that promotes Swedish culinary excellence is constructed by drawing on preestablished national (self-)images. This culinary community is constructed as open and tolerant, with ethical concerns for the environment and for nonhuman animals. Its culinary icons are represented by chefs in whites and the leading restaurants. In sum, this dissertation provides empirical and theoretical contributions to both food studies and gender studies that critically scrutinize men and masculinities. Food-issues are permeated by gender, both in people’s everyday life and in the gastronomic elite.
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