Food in the Lives of Paris and Chicago Residents

Essays on Food in the Lives of Paris and Chicago Residents

PhD Defense (Doctorate in Sociology)

Coline Ferrant

International Dual Degree Sciences Po & Northwestern University

Thursday, December 17 2020, 16:00pm (Paris 7^e or via Zoom)

Jury: Talja BLOKLAND (Humboldt University), Philippe CARDON (Université de Lille - CeRIES), Gary FINE (PhD Adviser, Northwestern University), Robert LAUNAY (Northwestern University), Marco OBERTI (PhD Adviser, Sciences Po - OSC), Michael RODRIGUEZ-MUNIZ (Northwestern University).

The dissertation’s topic is the creation of quotidian judgements and practices related to food, amid the enduring social and spatial stratification of everyday life. The sites are two large and diverse cities: Paris and Chicago. The method is ethnographic and contextual.

The first chapter documents the dietary tastes and culinary practices of first- and second-generation immigrants in Paris and Chicago. They share a taste for freshness and naturalness, craft quotidian culinary practices qualified as simple, and appreciate commonalities and singularities between the various cuisines they have known. Theoretically, they recraft their judgement of the good quotidian diet as simple cooking using fresh produce.

In the second chapter we study food access and acquisition in mixed neighborhoods in Paris. First- and second-generation immigrants perceive the metropolis as a rich and diverse food environment, endow mobility with self-efficacy, and craft metropolis-wide acquisition practices. Natives perceive their neighborhood as a food-deficient environment, construct proximity as a moral value, and craft neighborhood-centric acquisition practices.

Chapter 3 inquires into stale bread disposal practices in two French urban contexts: cités and villes. In cités, most residents toss stale bread in the garbage, others hang it in plastic bags on railings, and others litter it. In villes, all residents toss bread in the garbage. This is explained by differences in urbanity – specifically, three characteristics of cités: unused spaces (called edge spaces), a sentiment of communal pessimism, and a binary opposition of communality vs. estrangement in perceptions of spaces, uses of spaces, and interactions.