Journal article

The Intimate Politics of Soul Food: On the Tastes and Distastes of a New Orleans Black Middle-Class Family

Pages 113 to 140

Cite this article


  • Larchet, N.
(2022). The Intimate Politics of Soul Food: On the Tastes and Distastes of a New Orleans Black Middle-Class Family. Politique américaine, 39(2), 113-140. https://doi.org/10.3917/e.polam.039.0113.

  • Larchet, Nicolas.
« The Intimate Politics of Soul Food: On the Tastes and Distastes of a New Orleans Black Middle-Class Family ». Politique américaine, 2022/2 N° 39, 2022. p.113-140. CAIRN.INFO, shs.cairn.info/journal-politique-americaine-2022-2-page-113?lang=en.

  • LARCHET, Nicolas,
2022. The Intimate Politics of Soul Food: On the Tastes and Distastes of a New Orleans Black Middle-Class Family. Politique américaine, 2022/2 N° 39, p.113-140. DOI : 10.3917/e.polam.039.0113. URL : https://shs.cairn.info/journal-politique-americaine-2022-2-page-113?lang=en.

https://doi.org/10.3917/e.polam.039.0113


Notes

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    This article is based on a presentation given at the 2018 Yale Urban Ethnography Conference, “Observing and Representing Everyday Life,” which took place on November 1st-3rd, 2018 at Yale University. I am grateful to Elijah Anderson, Celia Bense, Zsuzsa Berend, Henri Peretz and to all the participants at this conference for their constructive criticism.
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    The name has been changed.
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    Author’s field notes (translated from French), December 22nd, 2008.
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    R.A. Peterson and R.M. Kern, “Changing Highbrow Taste,” art. cit.
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    S. Chavis, “Is There a Difference Between Southern and Soul?,” art. cit., p. 242.
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    Ibid., p. xii.
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    Idem.
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    Ibid., p. 209.
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English

The traditional cuisine of the Southern United States has been both stigmatized for its contribution to the obesity epidemic and appropriated into mainstream American culture in recent years. As a fusion of African, European, and Amerindian influences, “Southern food” is a truly American cuisine, but its ownership is contested between whites and black Southerners. Based on an ethnographic study of the consumption practices of a New Orleans black middle-class family, this article aims to move beyond culturalist assumptions reducing “soul food” to a tradition from the past and African Americans to a monolithic group. Revisiting Bourdieu’s theory of “distinction” to account for class as well as racial differentiation, it explores how this family’s consumption practices allow them to claim middle-class respectability without betraying their black identity, distinguishing them from both poor blacks and middle-class whites threatening their precarious position.


Français

Ces dernières années, la cuisine traditionnelle du Sud des États-Unis a été à la fois stigmatisée pour sa contribution à l’épidémie d’obésité et de plus en plus adoptée par la culture populaire américaine. En tant que fusion d’influences africaines, européennes et amérindiennes, la cuisine du Sud est véritablement américaine, mais sa propriété est contestée entre les communautés blanches et noires. À partir d’une ethnographie des pratiques de consommation d’une famille noire de classe moyenne de La Nouvelle-Orléans, cet article vise à dépasser les présupposés culturalistes réduisant la soul food à une tradition du passé et les Africains-Américains à un groupe monolithique. En revisitant la théorie de la « distinction » de Bourdieu pour prendre en compte l’intersection des catégories de race et de classe, nous verrons comment les pratiques de consommation de cette famille permettent à ses membres de revendiquer les valeurs de respectabilité des classes moyennes sans trahir leur identité noire, en se distinguant à la fois des Noirs pauvres et des blancs de classe moyenne qui menacent leur position sociale.

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