Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
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University of Bath PHD Feasting with Death: A Study of Funeral-Food Practices Graham, Joshua Award date: 2017 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Feasting with Death: A Study of Funeral-Food Practices Joshua F. W. Graham A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Department of Social and Policy Sciences October 2017 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis/portfolio rests with the author and copyright of any previously published materials included may rest with third parties. A copy of this thesis/portfolio has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it understands that they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author or other copyright owners, as applicable. This thesis/portfolio may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation with effect from……………….(date) Signed on behalf of the Faculty/School of................................... Abstract This interdisciplinary thesis, which draws on the allied social research fields, looks at the contemporary material culture of food gifting, creation, and consumption in an extended social network in northwest Georgia, USA, from the time of death to the meal immediately following an internment and any subsequent food-gifts specifically gifted in memoriam. To accomplish this, this thesis uses both participant observation and extended, food-centered interviews. Further, to proffer a wider perspective on Southern funeral food practices and to reconstruct a historical perspective lacking in the academic literature, this thesis analyses popular media generated by or about Southerners, including fiction and nonfiction books, music, blog posts, and films. The chief finding is that the normative funeral-food actors in the fieldwork location are white, Christian, and female. That is to say, funeral food is used not only to construct personal and communal identities but also to perform regional denominations of Christianity. Furthermore, the labor of constructing the material experience of Southern funerals is overwhelmingly the labor of women. Women express this behavior in a matrix of home-made versus purchased, and prescribed versus extemporaneous, food-gifts and corresponding social visits, all under the auspices of what is believed to be and is performed as Christian charity. Most social research on contemporary funeral-food practices analyses minority experiences, especially the experiences of people of color and/or those living in poverty. Because of the inherently comparative nature of many social-research methods, this focus on minority experiences leaves a large gap in analysis, which this thesis seeks to begin to fill. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank the numerous families who opened up their lives and homes to me in the depths of deeply, personal loss for the sake of this research. I hope I have recounted their stories here with a dignity equal to the kindness they showed me throughout this process. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS). Without access to CDAS’s extended network and the advice on using it given to me by Caron Staley, this research would have never been completed. Many thanks to Dr. Arnar Árnason and Dr. Sarah Moore, my examiners for this project. Without their insights, this thesis would not have been as strong. Researching death is hard, and so I want to personally thank my supervisors. Thanks to Dr. John Troyer, Dr. Kate Woodthorpe, and Dr. Tony Walter for their patience and helpful guidance throughout this process. Lastly, there are a few people I must thank, for without their help, this project would have never come to fruition. To Dr. Samuel Gerace for his endless patience and support throughout this process, as well as his willingness to debate theory, read drafts at any hour, and be there during every step of the process. To Dr. Kerry Wendt for her endless support and constant willingness to provide editorial advice, and please know that any mistake in this document is my own and should in no way reflect poorly upon her immense help. To Elinor Predota for her willingness to share her deep insights into social research theory and her keen interest in my project. To Su Chard and Renske Visser for the endless cups of teas and willingness to debate the thorniest parts of my project, and to Dr. Alistair Bradley whose respect and support were a ballast. Finally, to the memory of my grandmother Doris Wallace, as inspiration for this project. Thank you all, this project is for you. Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 Framework: Anthropological Approaches and Concepts in Play ........................................ 15 Chapter 2 Backgrounds: Studies of Food, Funerals, and Death .......................................................... 49 Chapter 3 Kitchen Conversations: Research Method and Design ...................................................... 101 Chapter 4 Contexts: The American South and Northwest Georgia .................................................... 127 Chapter 5 Eating with our Eyes: Southern Funeral Food in the Blogosphere .................................... 167 Chapter 6 What’s in a Casserole?: Material Culture of Southern Funeral Food ................................ 187 Chapter 7 Church Ladies and Fellowship Halls: Religiosity and Southern Funeral Food................. 213 Chapter 8 Aunt Sally’s Lemon Chiffon Cake: Family, Gender, and Southern Funeral Food ............ 235 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 255 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................ 261 Appendix 1: Participants ..................................................................................................................... 321 Appendix 2: Images ............................................................................................................................ 323 Appendix 3: Recipes ........................................................................................................................... 335 Introduction When I began my Ph.D. research, one of my new colleague, who was showing me around the department, joked that he studied African Education policy because it was a topic that could not follow him home as he lived in Britain. Two topics inescapable in everyday life, however, are food and death. My grandmother’s death marked the beginning of my Ph.D., my partner’s grandfather died at the end of my first year, and death, whether from war, terror, or the passing of a beloved celebrity, is an everyday fact of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Food is even more prosaic, both marking our special occasions and being so mundane that many often cannot even remember everything they consumed during that or in previous days. The study of funeral feasting is a longstanding and ongoing avenue of inquest in anthropology (e.g., Adams 2004; Beynon, Halpin, and Anderson 2000; Carrasco 1961; Kirkby 1973). However, even with this keen anthropological interest in funeral feasts, the academy has paid very little attention to the funeral-food customs of stakeholders in the United States who self-identify as part of the dominant white culture. For example, Lonnie Yoder (1986) shows how in the American context, the post-funeral meal can act as an important moment of family bonding and transformation during which the attendees can do the important work of grieving. While Yoder does not specify any context other than Christian or post-Christian, his works seem relevant to a hegemonic white context, yet the power dynamics beholden to that position of privilege are unexamined. Elsewhere, Jacqueline Thursby’s Funeral Festivals in America (2006) is perhaps the most well-known work on funeral foods in America. Thursby examines both the historic and contemporary 1 funeral-food practices in America, pointing out minority practices such as African- American and First-Nations funeral-food practices, but whiteness remains obscured and unexamined behind the idea of normative Americanness. Donna Lee Brien (2013) draws on Thursby’s work to explore