Boni, Zofia Antoinia (2016) Children and food in Warsaw : Negotiating feeding and eating. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/22781 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Children and Food in Warsaw: Negotiating Feeding and Eating Zofia Antonina Boni Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2016 Department of Anthropology and Sociology SOAS, University of London 1 Declaration for SOAS PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: __________ 2 ABSTRACT In my thesis I argue that feeding children in Warsaw involves multiple negotiations, which engage different people, various institutions and take place in varied spaces. Amid these negotiations, adults and children engage in power struggles, which are situated within wider public discourses, political debates and moral perspectives on food and modern personhood. Adults implement strategies in order to feed children in a particular way, whereas children re-negotiate that imposed order using different tactics. Children in many ways influence the process of feeding. At the same time, both adults and children are disciplined and normalized in relation to what is considered the “proper” way of feeding and eating. They are socialized into “proper” eaters and feeders by other social actors. I argue that feeding and eating are inextricably connected and cannot be studied separately as they continuously influence one another. The thesis is based on 12 months of fieldwork conducted in Warsaw between September 2012 and August 2013. My fieldwork was based on multi-sited and relational ethnography and included research conducted with working and middle class families and in primary schools. During my fieldwork I treated children, aged 6 – 12 years old, as independent interlocutors and I used diversified methods when working with them. I also studied state institutions, food companies and food marketers, non-governmental organisations and media debates related to children and food. Drawing from practice theory and building on structural and interactive approaches, I study the ways in which feeding and eating are negotiated between diverse social actors in Warsaw. The thesis discusses diverse moral perspectives on food, discourses and narratives about food and children, multiple experiences and practices related to feeding and eating embedded in the context of post- socialist transformation, shifting notions of parenthood and childhood, and the changing politics of food and food education in Poland. 3 “The Youngbloods are already at the table, the housemaid brings potato soup, the schoolgirl also sits there – she sits perfectly, with her slightly Bolshevik physique-kultur, in sneakers. She didn't eat much soup that day – instead she gulped a glass of water and followed it with a slice of bread, she stayed away from the soup – a watered-down mush, warm and too effortless, definitely bad for her type – and she probably wanted to go hungry as long as possible, at least until the meat dish, because a hungry modern girl is more classy than a satiated modern girl. (…) to affirm my misery and to underscore my indifference, and how unworthy I was of everything, I began to dabble in my fruit compote, tossing into it bread crumbs, bits of rubbish, bread pellets, and stirring it with my spoon. I still had my ugly mug, so what, this was good enough for me—‘shit, what do I care’, I thought sleepily, adding a little salt, pepper, and a couple of toothpicks, ‘oh, so what, I'll eat it all as long as it fills me, makes no difference..’ It was as if I were lying in a ditch, little birdies flying about... stirring with my spoon I felt warm and cozy. ‘Well, young man? . Well, young man? . Why is our young man dabbling in his compote?’ Mrs Youngblood asked this softly yet anxiously. I lifted my inept gaze from the compote. ‘I... just, it's all the same to me...’ I whispered, calm and slime in my voice. And I proceeded to eat the pap; and the pap didn't really make the slightest difference to my spirit. It's hard to describe the effect this had on the Youngbloods, I didn't expect such a powerful effect. (…) The girl bent over her plate and ate the compote in silence, with decorum and restraint, even with heroism. Mrs Engineer turned pale – she stared at me as if hypnotized, bug-eyed, she was obviously afraid of me. Afraid! ‘It's just a pose! A pose!’ she kept mumbling. ‘Don't eat that... I forbid you! Zuta! Victor – Zuta! Victor! Zuta! Zuta! Victor – stop him, tell him to stop! Oh...’. But I went on eating, because why shouldn't I? I'll eat it all.” (Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke: 138 – 140) 4 Table of Contents: Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................. 7 List of Illustrations .................................................................................................................. 8 Prologue ................................................................................................................................ 9 Chapter I. Introduction ............................................................................................ 12 1.1 Understanding Feeding – Eating Relationships ......................................................20 Feeding .......................................................................................................................22 Eating..........................................................................................................................24 Karmienie, Żywienie and Jedzenie ..............................................................................26 Negotiations ...............................................................................................................28 1.2 Feeding and Eating in Post-socialist Poland ...........................................................37 Chapter II. Methods and Context: Situating Myself and My Field Sites ..................54 2.1 Fieldwork in Warsaw ..............................................................................................54 2.2 Relational and Multi-sited Ethnography .................................................................59 Families ......................................................................................................................60 Primary Schools ..........................................................................................................64 Other Field Sites: State Institutions, NGOs, Food Industry, and Media .....................70 2.3 Research with Children ...........................................................................................73 Chapter III. The Morality of Feeding and Eating and Food Categorizations ...........79 3.1 Food Morality .........................................................................................................82 Health Frame: Dominating Moral Perspective on Food ............................................85 Other Moral Perspectives on Food ............................................................................87 Food Morality and Children .......................................................................................91 3.2 Children's Food ........................................................................................................93 Śmieciowe Jedzenie (Junk Food) ..............................................................................102 Sweets ......................................................................................................................104 Fruits and Vegetables ...............................................................................................113 3.3 Balancing “Good” and “Bad” Food .......................................................................118 Chapter IV. The Orders of Feeding and Eating: Home and School Negotiations .123 4.1 The Order of Feeding and Eating at Home ...........................................................126 The Gendered Division of Foodwork........................................................................126 The Changing Family Foodways ...............................................................................129 The Generational Order ...........................................................................................134 Children’s Contribution to Foodwork at Home ........................................................138