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The Antipolitics of Food in Middle-Class America

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The Antipolitics of Food in Middle-Class America City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2016 The Antipolitics of Food in Middle-Class America Neri de Kramer The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1588 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE ANTIPOLITICS OF FOOD IN MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA by NERI DE KRAMER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 © 2016 NERI DE KRAMER All Rights Reserved ii THE ANTIPOLITICS OF FOOD IN MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA by NERI DE KRAMER This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Anthropology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Donald Robotham ______________________ __________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Gerald Creed ______________________ __________________________________________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Ida Susser Jeff Maskovsky THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT THE ANTIPOLITICS OF FOOD IN MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA by Neri de Kramer Adviser: Professor Donald Robotham This dissertation provides an ethnographic account of the food and parenting practices of a diverse group of middle-class families in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. It starts from the basic premise that the economic pressures on the American middle classes find expression in family life around the socially reproductive work of choosing food and parenting. The current economic climate marked with extreme and rising income inequality, low growth, high unemployment and stagnating wages has complicated the reproduction process for all parents in this study, regardless of income. Scholars have described how this concern for the future of the next generation is expressed in intensive parenting strategies and I show that this concern is also expressed in a preoccupation with food. This is because the task of choosing food in America today confronts consumers with many of the harmful excesses of the capitalist system that are also responsible for the middle-class squeeze and second, because food is connected to class status, and thus the future prospects of the next generation, in various ways. The dissertation describes how parents’ strategies for eating and getting children to eat in a way that promotes class appropriate health and body size, taste preferences and the right politics vary among self-described middle-class families of different means. It describes the subsequent variations in the experience of middle-class family life, including the household division of labor by gender, and the different dilemmas and contradictions that emerge for iv mothers and fathers in different middle-class fractions. Motivated by a desire to move beyond critical rejections of middle-class reproductive strategies as inherently neoliberal, self-centered, exclusionary and apolitical, the dissertation ends with a discussion of the hidden political potential of the visceral experience of precarity, in combination with broad middle-class critiques of the American food system and the commons-like social networks that emerge in response to the challenging conditions in the lives of middle-class parents in decline. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would have been impossible without the selfless cooperation of the parents who participated in it. I am deeply grateful for the way they welcomed me, a perfect stranger, into the intimacy of their homes and allowed me to observe and record some of the most private and not always perfect moments of their lives with young children. I am also thankful for the time parents took out of their busy days to answer my interview questions as well as for the food they invariably offered me. I am furthermore indebted to the additional people who agreed to talk with me about the culture and history of Mount Airy and its food environment. Laura Siena, Abigail Perkiss and Mordechai Liebling provided an understanding of Mount Airy’s history, helpful documents and references. Glenn Bergman and Norman Weiss offered insights on the history and culture of the Co-op and general manager Jon Roesser accommodated my every request for information and documents. I am grateful to Nathea Lee, Bettina de Caumette and Sue Wasserkrug for welcoming me to the Co-ops meetings. I want to thank Scott Wikander for talking to me at length about the brew club and restaurateur Chris Simpson for his lucid insights into the local interactions between food, class and politics. All these people provided valuable context and background information which found its way into the dissertation. I would not have reached this point without the guidance and interventions of my adviser, Donald Robotham, who not only helped me bring into focus the key theoretical objective of this dissertation but who patiently served as my trusted resource during my many years at the Graduate Center. I am thankful for his support, dependable responsiveness, humor and good cheer. I am greatly indebted, too, to Jeff Maskovsky for his quick, keen and original insights, for suggesting key terms and my title, introducing me to fascinating new bodies of work and keeping vi the bar high. I am also grateful for Ida Susser’s encouragement and the feminist lens she taught me to apply in my research and teaching. I am thankful to Sharon Zukin for getting me excited about the Graduate Center in the first place, for serving on my second exam committee and for remaining my champion despite the many years it took to finish. Many thanks, too, to Jane Schneider for serving on my second exam. I would also like to thank Don Nonini for graciously agreeing to serve as my outside reader and for his helpful comments. I am furthermore grateful for Ellen DeRiso, who provided incalculable administrative and logistical support with patience and kindness. The project has benefited greatly from the many conversations I had with friends and neighbors about food and parenting and the insights they shared with me. I thank Martha Millison, Jena Croxford, Pam Waltz, Emily Giszter, Holly Price, Mary Rincon, Rinu Jacob, Stephanie Heck and Dora Presley for the consistent interest they showed in the topic and for helping my thinking along with their questions, ideas and personal anecdotes. I am also thankful for the support and encouragement I received during the second exam and writing process from my friends at the Graduate Center: Christine Pinnock, Akissi Briton, Adrienne Lotson, Tina Lee, Vivian Berghahn and Vickie Stone. My children Kees and Elsa inspired this project and gave it meaning. They have lived their entire lives with a mother in graduate school and I am grateful for their patience, their faith in me, and for keeping me grounded. Finally, I thank my husband and biggest advocate Doug Lynch for his unwavering faith in my academic abilities, endless support and commitment to my success. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments……………………..…………………………………………………………vi Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 Food and the study of the American middle class Research design Research participants Dissertation outline Chapter 2: Literature Review ……………………………………………………………………23 Food and social class Reproductive work and intensive parenting The post-political context Beyond a critique of neoliberalism: the rediscovery of the commons Chapter 3: Mount Airy: The Berkeley of the East……………………………………………….44 Green, diverse, progressive Performative politics The Mount Airy food environment and Weaver’s Way Co-op Chapter 4: Meeting Local Food and Parenting Norms: Dilemmas, Contradictions and a Third Shift…………………………………………………………………...……….77 Feeding middle-class children, instilling good habits Dilemmas, contradictions and the third shift Do-it-yourself food production Different middle-class experiences of motherhood Chapter 5: Father’s Reproductive Work………………………………………………………..104 The division of labor by gender Parenting with food Raising children, reconciling messages Social networks and the brew club Chapter 6: Conclusion: Reinterpreting Middle-class Reproductive Practices………………….159 Sensory Deprivations Food politics and the lack of advocacy The turn away from consumption Works Cited....………………………………………………………………………………….178 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The topic of this dissertation is a personal one. As a former cook, food has long been an obvious way for me to understand and connect to people, and when I left the professional kitchen to return to the graduate study of anthropology I soon found myself most inspired by scholars who use food as a tool for the study of human relations and processes of social change (Bourdieu 1984; Mintz 1985; Roseberry 1996; Weismantel 1989; 1998; Counihan 1998; 1999, Counihan and Van Esterik 2012). When I became a mother, I noticed how the biologically and socially reproductive task of feeding children fills my peers with anxiety. Among the middle- and upper middle-class mothers in my social circle in Philadelphia, where I live, food is the number one topic of conversation. Mothers seem to be deeply concerned about the quality,
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