Food transition in France: what can we learn from an ethnography of emotions towards food industrialisation?

Résumé En

Environmental issues are at the heart of the 2020s. However, there is yet no consensus on how to tackle the environmental transition. It faces a diversity of experiences and contemporary inequalities. Emotions have recently emerged as a tool to interprete social phenomena, and as a basic fact of sociological analysis. They allow a better understanding of the tensions that run through today’s society, and, in particular, the debates around the ecological transition. This work is part of a doctoral thesis on the social construction of emotions related to food processing in France. What are the emotions aroused by the industrialization of food? How do these emotions vary according to social characteristics? And to what extent do these emotions reveal different attitudes to the questions raised by food transition?Ethnographic data were collected through semi-structured interviews, meal observations and focus groups. These qualitative data were completed by an analysis of quantitative data collected from 2018 households.“Industrial" foods arouse indifference, anxiety, disgust, anger and sadness, but also pleasure and fascination. These emotions are based on different conceptions of nature and technology. After describing the different emotions identified, this communication presents the link between the emotion expressed and conceptions of nature, technology and time.