S. J. Lewis: Recipes for reconnection: older people’s perspectives on the mediating role of food in contemporary urban society Recipes for reconnection: older people’s perspectives on the mediating role of food in contemporary urban society Susan Lewis Centre for Manx Studies,
[email protected] ABSTRACT By problematising age-related categorisations in community health education this article calls for reflection on approaches to research that, while they may facilitate practice, risk overlooking valuable local skills. Classifying people as ‘Senior Citizen’ or the like may help to direct delivery of services, but may also imply an end to useful participation in commu- nity life. In contrast, the article argues that they may have a significant role to play in food- related health education and in reconnecting their fellow community members with the social role of food and with each other. KEYWORDS: older people, community health education and development, health in- equalities, social role of food, marginalisation. Introduction One of the greats of anthropology once opened a conference by declaring that she had never done any research on the subject in hand, and was ‘decidedly not an expert’ (Powdermaker 1997: 203). In complement to the specialists’ foci, her contribution was to be one of setting the issue at hand ‘in the context of the culture’. The research that informs the following discussion did not consider food or feeding as its primary concern – simi- larly, I am no ‘expert’ in the field – but the argument presented does draw on data gathered whilst conducting action research with a community health development project in Scot- land.