Food, Drink and the Cultures of Work

Abstract

This paper looks at the consumption of food and drink in the context of the workplace. It examines a variety of ways in which work culture and identity are constructed and reproduced across time and space. The paper is based on the author's research into the former Guinness brewery at Park Royal, London, which closed in the summer of 2005 after nearly seventy years of production. The paper reflects on industrial culture, memory, loss and nostalgia for a workplace in transition and in particular the role played by food and drink in this process. The paper draws on material generated by a mixture of methods and approaches including semi-structured interviews, archival research as well as visual methods.

Keywords:

• Guinness
• nostalgia
• memory
• work culture
• visual methods