Body Talk and Boundary Work Among Arab Canadian Immigrant Women

Oleschuk, Merin; Vallianatos, Helen

doi:10.1007/s11133-019-09428-w

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…That is, nutrition socialization is a process of negotiation, adaptation, and even rejection rather than a seamless transfer of nutritional principles and values (Dondero et al., 2018; Dondero & Van Hook, 2016). Indeed, scholarship has revealed how immigrant mothers draw on, engage with, and resist different healthy eating discourses while affirming their ethnic and racial identities which otherwise risk being erased, dismissed, or denigrated within a dominant white society (Alkon & Vang, 2020; Oleschuk & Vallianatos, 2019; Ristovski‐Slijepcevic et al., 2008; Ternikar, 2019). As such, immigrant mothers' understandings of “good” foodwork derive less from expert‐driven nutritional standards and more from knowledge learned locally and socially from family and community practices (Abarca, 2006; Roy, 2005).…”

Section: Food Meanings In the Context Of Gendered Classed And Raciali...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal foodwork: Situating the sociology of feeding within diet and nutrition disparities

Fielding‐Singh

Oleschuk

2023

Sociology Compass

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Widespread inequities in diet and nutrition present a pressing public health problem. Sociologists working to illuminate the causes and contours of these inequities often center the role of family foodwork, or the multifaceted domestic labor that supports eating, including planning and preparing meals. Mounting sociological scholarship on foodwork considers how food's meanings are socially patterned to reflect broader social structures, ideologies and institutions that influence their manifestation and families' resources to enact them. Here, we present three core contributions from the sociology of foodwork that can advance essential transdisciplinary conversations around nutrition disparities as well as efforts to tackle these disparities. We lay out how (1) family foodwork is historically rooted in broader structures of capitalist exploitation and women's subordination, and today remains gendered through normative discourses equating “good” feeding with “good” mothering; (2) the moralization of foodwork is buttressed by an ideological context idealizing homecooked meals and lamenting foodwork's decline, and; (3) foodwork—and societal evaluations of it—are shaped and stratified by intersecting gendered, classed, and racial inequalities. After reviewing each contribution and its importance for addressing nutrition inequities, we conclude by advocating for a closer conversation across disciplines and highlighting important future directions for sociologists.

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Section: Food Meanings In the Context Of Gendered Classed And Raciali...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal foodwork: Situating the sociology of feeding within diet and nutrition disparities

Fielding‐Singh

Oleschuk

2023

Sociology Compass

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“…The boundaries formed are often symbolic and, as such, elusive, unstable, and flexible, and require ongoing work (Abbott 1995, 858; Alvarez 1995, 449; Gieryn 1983, 792; Lamont and Molnár 2002, 168). This work is carried out through discursive and bodily, sensorial, and spatial practices (Mizrachi, Shuval, and Gross 2005, 37; Oleschuk and Vallianatos 2019, 589; Rodner et al. 2020, 5).…”

Section: Boundary Work In Art and The Ideal Of Artistic Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“Where Do You Draw the Line?”: Working Out the Boundaries between “Art” and “Non‐Art” in Life Drawing Classes

Steinbock¹,

Goodman²

2022

Ethos

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Based on participant observations in life drawing classes at an art academy in Jerusalem, this article examines the diverse ways artists‐in‐the‐making work out the boundaries between “art” and “non‐art.” First, the classes serve as a rite of passage in which actors deploy discursive, spatial, and sensorial practices to relate to and represent the live model as a unique object of art. Second, using the model evokes moral deliberations through which students attempt to articulate how an “artistic” way of seeing the body differs from other uses of an exposed (mainly female) body prevalent in society. Third, students positioned as religious others negotiate their participation in this Western artistic tradition, using their alterity to destabilize the art/non‐art boundary. These various negotiations demonstrate how the “art” category and art students’ sense of an artistic self, body, and belonging are formed through a pragmatic, relational, and multifaceted boundary work.

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“…At the same time, critical race scholarship adds important complexity to this literature, stressing that there is no one universal experience of motherhood, and cautioning against extrapolating white, middle‐class experience to diverse ethno‐racial and classed groups (Baca Zinn, 1990; Collins, 1994, p. 56; Glenn, 1994). For example, within the context of immigration, foodwork often plays a crucial role in preserving and reinforcing ethnic group identities at risk of erasure within a dominant white society, while simultaneously affirming gendered identities (and inequalities) and preserving social relationships across distances in time and space (Abarca, 2006; Oleschuk & Vallianatos, 2019; Yuval‐Davis, 1997). These complex meanings infuse foodwork with particular forms of power that can foster satisfaction, pride, and prestige for immigrant women while simultaneously reinforcing gendered inequalities within the home.…”

Section: Pleasure Agency and Inequality In Foodworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Familialism, or family closeness, often serves as a point of cultural identity and pride among racialized, immigrant communities, as a way to define themselves in relation to a white majority (e.g., Liamputtong, 2006). Shared meals are a crucial way for immigrants to reinforce familial relationships in this way (Oleschuk & Vallianatos, 2019). This foodwork is nonetheless also highly gendered: women remain tasked with familial and cultural maintenance through their social reproductive labor (including foodwork) in the domestic sphere (Espiritu, 2001; Liamputtong, 2006; Yuval‐Davis, 1997).…”

Section: Profiles Of Pleasure Amid Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the joys of cooking: How class shapes the emotional experience of family foodwork

Oleschuk

2020

Gender Work & Organization

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The emotional experience of foodwork is often considered along a continuum, where pleasure exists in opposition to labor, and where inequalities restrict pleasure. Analyzing qualitative interviews, recall conversations and cooking observations with 34 primary cooks in families, this article explores how diverse parents experience pleasure through family foodwork. Doing so reveals five conditions facilitating pleasure: time, choice, aesthetic freedom, connection, and appreciation. It then analyzes how access to these conditions is shaped by class inequalities, while being attentive to intersections with gender and race/ethnicity. This analysis reveals how socio‐economic inequalities fashion negative emotional relationships to foodwork by imposing disproportionate stressors on low‐income home cooks, but do not necessarily predict cooking pleasure. Through examining intersections between the sensory and material aspects of foodwork, this article furthers theoretical understanding into how foodwork reinforces gendered, racialized, and classed oppression, while simultaneously identifying how agency and empowerment operate through cooking pleasure for low‐income groups.

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Body Talk and Boundary Work Among Arab Canadian Immigrant Women

Cited by 10 publications

References 61 publications

Unequal foodwork: Situating the sociology of feeding within diet and nutrition disparities

Unequal foodwork: Situating the sociology of feeding within diet and nutrition disparities

“Where Do You Draw the Line?”: Working Out the Boundaries between “Art” and “Non‐Art” in Life Drawing Classes

Expanding the joys of cooking: How class shapes the emotional experience of family foodwork

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