Cultural and Symbolic Capital With and Without Economic Constraint

Abstract

This paper uses a Bourdieusian theoretical framework to explore how thirty-nine Canadian families shop for food. Based on two qualitative interviews with at least two members of each family, in seven sites across Canada, we explore how high- and low-income families describe their food shopping practices and priorities. For low-income households, economic constraints were paramount, and shoppers displayed extensive cultural capital in the knowledge and skills required to purchase food at the lowest possible cost. They also displayed considerable agreement with the dominant discourses of healthy eating and ethical eating, though they typically lacked the economic capital to pursue these. High-income households were less constrained by finances in their food shopping, thus freeing them to focus on quality and authenticity. These priorities coexisted with or superseded emphases on healthy and ethical eating, suggesting the latter two may have diminished in their symbolic power to mark class distinctions.

Keywords:

• food practices
• socioeconomic factors
• social class
• Bourdieu
• habitus
• provisioning

Acknowledgements

We thank the Canadian Institutes for Health Research for research funding. We also thank all the participants, plus the rest of the Family Food Practices research team, Josée Johnston, Deborah McPhail, and Helen Vallianatos.