How to do things with food: The rules and roles of mealtime ‘things’ in everyday family dinners

Abstract

This study examines the local enactment of mealtime rules during everyday family dinners. The data is approached through multimodal interaction analysis and through concepts which reconceptualize materiality and agency. The study found that mealtime rules were generated and sometimes sustained in the continuous interaction between parents, children and food and mealtime things, especially in relation to material textures, for example liquid, solid, can roll, elastic. Family mealtime rules moreover affected how family morality emerged. The study found that family morality was about much more than parental concerns with children's eating, rather, it was likewise about play and enjoyment.