Constraints upon food provisioning practices in 'busy' women's lives: trade-offs which demand convenience

Abstract

The present research explores food provisioning practices within women's lives. By drawing upon French social scientist Pierre Bourdieu's notions of habitus, cultural capital and field, a conceptual framework of the complex process leading to food provisioning practices is developed and investigated. To this end, repeated semi-structured interviews, participant observation, diaries and media analyses were conducted over a 3-month period with 11 women residing in Auckland (New Zealand), who were largely responsible for household food provisioning. The findings set the scene for challenging the notion of free choice. We argue that food provisioning practices are shaped by a process of trade-off between preferred practices and the constraints operating at a given point of time, resulting in practices which demand convenience in food provisioning to minimize time and cognitive effort.