Macro-social disruptions and evolutions open up new possibilities for feeding the family. This paper aims to review prior constraints imposed by the gendered history of care work as part of the moral economy, with particular focus on how food traditions and routines reproduce family relations.
An assemblage perspective provides an appropriate theoretical lens to trace such emergent reconfigurations.
The paper takes as its focus three macro shifts with the potential to incite more and less intentional changes to the realities of feeding the family: changes in home life and organization of care, dads’ participation in feeding the family and innovation in food systems.
Theoretical contributions reveal how shifting macro-social structures constrain and shape trajectories for the work of feeding the family.
Practical implications focus on how creative family members, marketers and policymakers influence arrangements, capacities and practices of family life.
This commentary brings an assemblage view of family life that proposes potential lines of flight when considering macro-context shifts, with particular attention to the relationship between food and family.
