UNDER the BELLY. A de-capitalisation of the body through food

Abstract

This research aims to explore and problematize the relation between body and food in the current neoliberal society. The media production about bodies who eat has an impact on our eating habits. Our choices concerning this primary need are connected with a binary system which creates distinctions such as male and female, control and gluttony, mastery and care. The influences of these modes of consumption fall back into our identities and gender roles. The obsessive thoughts on food, shape, and weight of the body and the development of eating disorders, not by chance with higher rates among women than men, are also affected by the power of these representations. Using the instrument of autoethnography, I look at binge eating episodes with a political perspective. The body, moved from its marginal position, is involved in a process of recognition of its agency and capability to act against the disciplinary dieting system. During this thesis I propose that a direct engagement with the materiality of food offers a possibility to rethink the relationship between body and food. Working in kitchens and using all the senses constitutes, on one hand, a practical way to touch, smell, taste, hear, see the matter. On the other hand, this experience offers an opportunity to subvert a system of control internalized by the body. As such, this thesis approaches the potential of practices within the kitchen to challenge the capitalist system.