fields of research

Disciplinary
Sociology
Work in progress
Sociology of Food
Contemporary period (1945 - today)
Turkey
Society Consumption Cooking Eating out Food cultures Food studies Gastronomy Globalization

Institution / Research unit

Publications

  • Erhan Akarçay « Beslencenin Sosyolojisi (Sociology of Foodatainment) » Phoenix Yayınevi Ankara Turkey (TR) 2016
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Thesis

« Middle Class’ Eating-Drinking Patterns as a Class Oriented Differentiation and Integration »
2014 - Supervised by Prof. Dr. Nadir Sugur.
Anadolu University

Since the 1980’s sociology of food and nutrition has come into being as a subfield
in sociology. In the last two or three decades, sociology of food and nutrition has
become an important issue with the debates on healthy diet, public health and
dietetics in the world. This is considerably a new field of research dealing with eating
habits, food cultures and practices in general.
The scope of this thesis is in the field of sociology of food and nutrition, as
used to be known as sociology of food, sociology of eating where social class
consuming patterns differs in a great deal. This study primarily aimed to examine
food consumption of middle class in Eskişehir and understand eating-drinking
practices and eating out habits of the middle class that reproduce social class relations
in respect to eating-drinking places, covering sociological analysis of places in terms
of sociology of food and nutrition.
There are few studies in sociology of food and nutrition in Turkey. This
research, conducted in Eskişehir, where the city is thriving, transforming and
gentrifying in the urban place, aimed to understand eating-drinking practices and
eating out habits of middle class and their social relations with eating-drinking places,
carried out in the field of sociology of food and nutrition. In this study, qualitative
approach has been used for the analyses in order to comprehend ways in which
everyday practices of middle class in relation to eating-drinking practices and eating
out habits. This dissertation claims to be one of the first emprical research in the field
of sociology of food and nutrition in Turkey. The universe of the research is the
middle class households in Eskişehir. The sample of the field research is determined
by the snowball sampling technique within the middle class families living in a
middle-sized city, Eskişehir. Indepth interviews was carried out with 23 middle class
households. In addition to this, 16 indepth interviews were conducted in eatingdrinking
places, where middle classes prefer to eat out in gentrified places and parts
of city center.
Keywords: Sociology of food and nutrition, sociology of consumption, middle
class, consumption, habitus, cultural capital, space.