The political dimension of consumption work, or political consumption as work: how French households do gatekeeping on the food market

ABSTRACT

Food policies increasingly expect consumers to regulate markets through their purchases. In this article a parallel is drawn with the sociology of art markets, where gatekeepers are intermediaries who select products in a context of excess supply and complex evaluation criteria. The authors see gatekeeping as part of consumption work, extending Glucksmann’s “total social division of labor” to the labor of regulating markets. At the same time, gatekeeping is part of food work, so it requires interacting with both market products and household members. Using a multi-site qualitative study of working-class families in France, it was found that all respondents engaged in gatekeeping when shopping in supermarkets. This had consequences for both the organization of consumption work and interactions with household members. Some households also sourced food outside of the supermarket (from the garden or local producers); this implied interacting and sharing work with the extended family network, but involved no gatekeeping. The interactional work involved in gatekeeping (before, during, and after purchases) or in other forms of provisioning contributed to reinforcing mothers’ gendered identities both within their families (as providers of care and facilitators of family relations) and in the labor market, and related to households’ positions in the property market.

KEYWORDS:

• Family
• food provisioning
• France
• gatekeeper
• political consumption
• rural
• shopping
• supermarket

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by a ‘Junior Researcher’ grant, SAE2 research department, INRA. Many colleagues from INRA and from ESA Consumption research network made useful comments at various stages of this research and are thanked.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Race or ethnic categories are not measured in France, and their use in surveys is strictly regulated (Sabbagh and Peer 2008). It was not a selection criterion in this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marie Plessz

Marie Plessz is researcher at the French national institute of agronomic research (INRA) and a member of Centre Maurice Halbwachs in Paris, France. Her research focuses on the links between social stratification, life course, and social change. After studying inequalities on the labor market during the postcommunist transformation in Central-Eastern Europe, she focuses on food consumption practices.

Marie-Clémence Le Pape

Marie-Clémence Le Pape is associate professor at Lyon-II Lumière University and a member of the Max Weber Center in Lyons, France. Her research focuses on sociology of the family. She studies parenting practices in working-class households and current changes in family life.