Around the table: Food and eating practices in children’s residential centres in Ireland

Abstract

Abstract The overall aim of this article is to explore food and eating practices around the table in children’s residential centres in Ireland. How food is used in residential care – what is eaten, how, when and where it is eaten – increases the sociological understanding of institutional eating practices in the centres. The table is the focus for this article where young people living in residential care and the workers employed there eat together. Commensality is stipulated in the state regulations for residential care centres – the resident group should eat together; it is recognized that hierarchical roles are played out when adults and children eat together; a table is also recognized as an ideal site for the discipline of children into the foodways of their culture and finally food and eating practices at a table can be seen as an expression of governmentality that contributes to the normalization of ‘proper meals’ in a ‘homely home’.