Families and food: beyond the "cultural turn"? P. Jackson Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
Received: 07 Jul 2010 – Published in Soc. Geogr. Discuss.: 04 Aug 2010 Revised: 02 Aug 2011 – Accepted: 29 Aug 2011 – Published: 06 Oct 2011
Abstract. This paper provides some personal reflections on the ''cultural
turn'' in human geography including a tentative chronology of events. It
outlines some of the characteristics of the ''cultural turn'' and some of the
criticisms that have been levelled against it. In the body of the paper, I
attempt to assess the value of the ''cultural turn'', conceptually and
methodologically, as applied to two recent research projects on the geography
of food and families. The paper concludes that the ''cultural turn'' greatly
enriched the study of human geography through its analysis of discourse,
representation and practice. But other approaches are required to explain
broader changes in political-economy and the materiality of nature. While the
''cultural turn'' contributed to our understanding of materiality and our place
in a more-than-human world, geographers are now also embracing other
approaches such as those informed by actor-network theory and geographies of
emotion, embodiment and affect. The paper concludes with an agenda for future
research on the political and moral economies of food, focusing on
contemporary consumer anxieties at a range of geographical scales.
Citation: Jackson, P.: Families and food: beyond the "cultural turn"?, Soc. Geogr., 6, 63-71, doi:10.5194/sg-6-63-2011, 2011.