Parenting practices : the provisioning, cooking-eating and remembering of food.

This thesis explores the way that parent(s) is display family through food materiality within
the context of time-space and the emotional connection between people in relation to their
everyday existence. It is concerned with examining the normal daily actions of families
using diary-interviews supported by a participant observational approach, which examines
the relationship between food activities and parent(s) practices. This research adopts a case study
approach in order to offer a rewarding encounter with everyday family activities both in
the United Kingdom and Hungary. Together, the two case-studies outline the differences and
similarities encountered in each location as representative of everyday family life. In
summary, this thesis offers to engage both empirically and theoretically with the notion of
family practices. Each chapter examines different aspects of foodways, specifically;
provisioning, cooking-eating and remembering, which enables family life to be displayed. I
explore these through the examining in each of these aspects, considering the materiality,
time-space/space-time and emotion that are displayed through foodways and which shape
parent(s) practices. The aspect of materiality that this thesis addresses draws particular
attention to the influence of mutable objects, viewing food more, playing more than a
symbolic role in life. The project focuses on framing time-space in terms of contextualising
and rooting activities and, in tum, practices. Emotions within the context of this research are
seen as being displayed through connections between people and practice, showing how and
why particular practices are recognised as being parenting practices. This thesis extends
current literature by considering recent developments within practice theory which accepts
that practices are more than just actions brought to bear on the notion of family practices
(Morgan 1996). This thesis contends that family is something that is done continually and
cannot be captured in one meal, and family practices are more pervasive in everyday life than
recent moral panics may suggest.