More Than a Lens: Reflections on Eating, Materiality, and Practice

Abstract

| Is food more than a “lens”? Within the field of food studies, food has been utilized as a “lens” for analyzing manifold aspects of human life. However, I suggest that treating food merely as a “lens” does not necessarily illuminate the particularities and peculiarities of food as a research object. What is specific about food? To deal with this question, I consider a focus on the materiality of eating. Inspired by approaches developed in science and technology studies (STS), food anthropology, practice theory, and feminist materialisms, I reflect on some of remarkable characteristics in the encounter between foods and bodies. My results include thought experiments on danger, destruction, routine, and crisis, as well as a fresh look at questions of digestion and metabolism. In doing so, I demonstrate ways to support the quest for foundational theorization within the field of food studies. Whether seeking theoretical synthesis or epistemological clash, I am convinced that new configurations of interdisciplinarity, especially across the longstanding divide between humanities and sciences, could ultimately help to provoke renewed conversation about food as an object of study. At the end of this essay, the question remains open for debate: what is special about food? Graduate Journal of Food Studies More Than a Lens: Re ections on Eating, Materiality, and Practice