Pharmacologization of food and feeding: an ethnographic study of everyday food in transition

Food and hence feeding is focal in the public discourse on risk and (ill)health. At present, food is undergoing what we may refer to as pharmacologization; that is, food is conceptualised in terms of its relation to the health of the human person who eats it. Although the medical application of food has been the subject of social science research, the cultural and social phenomena associated with the altered relation between the food of everyday life and health remains unexplored. The focus of the present study is the health-related dimensions of food in the context of everyday processes of feeding (oneself and others), prepared and consumed in the absence of actual disease, yet against the background of the implications of eating for future health. It ai ms to explore the possible modes in which this transformation of food, feeding and eating takes place. Two main focuses serve to organise this exploration. Firstly, the pharmacologization of food is investigated in its relation to everyday, recreational a nd festive food, as well as the historical practices of treating food as medicinal substances. Secondly, and more specifically, the project aims to explore the implications of pharmacologization for the role and experience of being a feeder; that is, of b eing one who initiates and is responsible for the incorporation of potentially harmful or beneficial substances into others and/or oneself. A combination of ethnographic methods will be used in this investigation, including repeated interviews with respon dents to the Oslo Health Study (HUBRO), public discourse analysis, key informants interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. The theoretical framework that will guide the investigation and its analysis is semiotics in the Peircean tr adition. The study will take place at the Department for General Practice and Community Medicine, University of Oslo. The project period is from January 2005 to December 2007.