Let’s eat together! The production of commensality in the spatial setting of the flexible office

Abstract

This paper draws attention to commensality -eating and drinking in the presence of others- and the spatial production of sharing food at work. We propose to add a socio-spatial perspective to the research agenda on the triad of food, work, and organization. In particular, we conceptually and empirically discuss the potential for understanding commensality space in a way that addresses its productive force, and its inherent dialectics and tensions. Applying insights from Lefebvre’s work on dialectics and space, we analyze the case of a French Banking organization's new flexible office, and we argue that and how commensality is meaningful to everyday working life. The contribution of this paper is three-fold: it argues that organizational space is a set of multiplicities that enact particular practices and organizational dialectics; it extends the concept of commensality; it adds to typical forms of commensality in sociology.