Making the Self in a Material World: Food and Moralities of Consumption

Isabelle De Solier

doi:10.5130/csr.v19i1.3079

Abstract

Food is increasingly central to consumer culture today. From fine dining restaurants to farmers’ markets, stainless steel kitchenware to celebrity chef cookbooks, there is a stylish array of culinary commodities available for fashioning our identities. Yet this occurs at a time when commodity consumption more generally is under greater question as a site of self-making, with the rise of anti-consumerist sentiment. This article examines how people negotiate these issues in their identity formation, by focusing on those for whom food is central to their sense of self: ‘foodies’. I draw on theories of consumption, identity and material culture, in particular the work of Daniel Miller, to examine ethnographic research undertaken with foodies in Melbourne, Australia.

Highlights

In this article I draw on theories of consumption, identity and material culture, and ethnographic research conducted with foodies in Melbourne, Australia
I argue that many foodies are anxious about the morality of making a self through consumption, and explore how they negotiate this in a number of ways: first, through the selection of which material goods are deemed proper for self-‐formation and, second, through what levels of consumption are ISSN 1837-8692 considered appropriate
This article has explored such questions in relation to the foodie, a self-‐identity which has become increasingly common in late modern consumer culture

Summary

Introduction

In this article I examine how people negotiate moralities of consumption in their identity formation by focusing on those for whom food is central to their sense of self: ‘foodies’. Many foodies believe that the consumption of food, in which their self-‐formation is invested, is of a higher moral value than the consumption of other material goods, such as clothes.

Results

Conclusion