Beyond conviviality: Facets of eating together

Abstract

The stability of the human tendency to eat in groups is remarkable. We find it to be valued and mostly desirable across geographical locations, cultures, and historical time periods. Yet, there is a great deal of variety in how the practice is expressed, how individuals experience it, and how the sharing of meals is understood culturally. This chapter focuses on three facets of eating together that deserve more attention in the literature: the biology of eating together; the differentiation and cohesion of eating together; and the performativity of eating together. It ends with a postulation about carefulness with normative claims about meals in company or in solitude.

Published in

Title: Eating Together in the Twenty-first Century : Social Challenges, Community Values, Individual Wellbeing
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

SLU Authors

• Jönsson, Håkan

  • Department of People and Society, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Lund University

UKÄ Subject classification

Ethnology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003373896-18
• ISBN: 978-1-032-44769-8
• eISBN: 978-1-003-37389-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/129603