In the
field of transnational media studies, food and food cultures are traditionally
examined as type of media content, environmental/commodity object, or mode of
sustenance (with some cultural significance), or, alternatively, as medium
through which relations of gender, class, sexuality, and dis/ability are made
manifest. Given this bifurcated lens, this issue seeks to bring together
articles that examine the nexus between food cultures, identity, and media
representation in more detail. Specifically, we seek submissions that use food
as a lens through which to study how its mediated representation (e.g.
television, print, film, the Internet/social media) reflects complicated
histories of colonialism, empire, neoliberalism, and inequality, but also
cultural resilience, social belonging, community, and political awareness.
Papers that
draw into this discussion the complicated relationship between food media and
racialisation, gender, class, sexuality, dis/ability, and other manifestations
of identity are particularly welcome – especially those that take an
intersectional approach and engage with the significance of changing and
culturally contingent conceptions of health and bodily comportment. Articles
that examine the use of food as a form of power and resistance, in both
productive and dangerous ways, and which reveal how larger patters oppression
and marginalization intersect with the social imagery, political economy,
public policy, and cultural survival are also desirable.
