‘Food is a funny thing within residential child care’: Intergenerational relationships and food practices in residential care

Abstract

This article is based on an ethnographic study that explored everyday food practices and relationships in three residential children’s homes in Scotland. On the one hand, food practices in residential child care can be used to cross intergenerational boundaries in a positive, enabling and caring manner. On the other hand, food can be interpreted differently by children and staff, at times resulting in negative interactions which may involve control and resistance. Thus food practices in a residential care setting can be used both to develop a sense of unity across the generations as well as reinforcing intergenerational power inequalities.