Gut Relations: A Phenomenology of the Affective and Social Significance of Eating Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

In this dissertation, I propose a phenomenology of eating as a world-making activity. Affect in the context of eating often fails to escape the dualism that looms over the Western philosophical tradition. On the one hand, it is often reduced to the individual body and consequently devalued or pathologized. On the other hand, its role in social life tends to be treated as passive, as either reflecting pre-existing social meanings or as the outcome of eating experiences. In either case, the meaningfulness of eating is not fully accounted for: Either eating is oriented around the satisfaction of individual bodily needs and desires, or its meaningfulness is detached from affect and embodiment. This dissertation contributes to scholarly approaches to eating that address the complexity of affect, embodiment, and sociality. The core argument of this dissertation is that through eating we participate in meaning-making processes that are not merely individual but inherently social, affective, and discursive. Eating relates us to the world and affords us possibilities for making and re-making the world.

Eating is often framed in normative terms: Good eating habits are consciously and intentionally cultivated, while bad eating habits are unconsciously held and unreflectively repeated. I begin this dissertation by critiquing this framework, arguing that a phenomenological approach to habit, informed by Merleau-Ponty’s description of the habit body, feminist theories, and affect theories, helps undo its dualism and better captures the inherent responsiveness, dynamism, and creativity in eating habits. From this, I argue that eating habits are inherently social and that this approach pushes beyond limitations of Bourdieu’s habitus, which renders sociality rigid and remains dominant in food studies. Sociological and philosophical approaches to eating too often attribute the meaningfulness of eating to the symbolic, detaching it from affect and embodiment. Accordingly, I offer a holistic approach to examining the meaning-making that occurs in eating. Finally, I analyze how dualisms appear in the context of taste and explore the complex ways that affective taste is involved in boundary-making. Ultimately, I argue that affective taste provides a productive framework to explore the transformative possibilities of eating as world-making.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: On Eating

I. Emotional Eating Beyond Disorder and Utopia

II. Methodology

a. Critical Phenomenology and Hybrid Methods

b. Critical Eating Studies: Why “Eating” and Not “Food”?

c. Embodied Research: Eating Happens Everywhere

d. Who Eats?

III. Chapter Overviews

CHAPTER 1: Reimagining Eating Habits: On Eating, Embodiment, and Worlds of Meaning

Introduction

I. The Problem of Eating Habits

a. Problematizing the Normative Framework of Eating Habits

b. Phenomenology of Habit

c. Reframing Eating Habits

II. Phenomenology of Eating: Perceptual, Visceral, and Affective Dimensions

a. Sensory Perception and Affect

b. Viscera and Affect

III. Eating Habits as Orienting

a. “The Body is Our Anchorage in a World”

b. Temporal and Spatial Orientation

c. Structural Inequalities

d. Eating is Relational

Conclusion

CHAPTER 2: Eating as World-Making: Habit, Habitus, and Affective Meaning-Making

August 16, 2023

Introduction

I. Habit and Habitus: The Inherent Sociality of Eating Habits

a. Bourdieu’s Habitus

b. The Sociality of Eating Habits: Between Structure and Agency

II. Eating in Worlds of/in Distress

a. Eating During the COVID-19 Pandemic

b. The Meaning of Meat Eating in the Face of Climate Change

c. Adaptability: Eating for Better Worlds

III. Making Meaning of Eating: Eating as World-Making

a. Emotion in the Habitus

b. Beyond Dualism

c. Affective Meaning-Making

Conclusion

CHAPTER 3: Affective Taste: The Transformative Possibilities of Taste

Introduction

I. Taste: Too Embodied or Disembodied

a. The Lower Senses

b. Taste as Metaphor

c. Taste as Social Distinction

d. Where is Affect?

II. Affective Taste: An Embodied Framework for Taste

a. Taste as Affective

b. Taste as Experience and Relation

c. Taste as Habit and History

III. Affective Taste, Social Boundaries, and Meaning-Making

a. Boundaries of Taste and Tasting

b. Making, Destroying, and Navigating Boundaries Through Taste

c. The Transformative Power of Affective Taste

Conclusion: Taste as Possibility

CONCLUSION: Insisting and Refusing

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Philosophy
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Philosophy
Keyword	affect feminist theory eating phenomenology sociality food studies
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Cynthia Willett, Emory University
Committee Members	Talia Welsh, University of Alberta John Lysaker, Emory University Ann V. Murphy, The University of New Mexico Noëlle McAfee, Emory University

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