‘Let Me Take a Photo Before We Eat’: The Impact of Digital Technologies on Food Production and Consumption in New Delhi

Abstract

Scholars have focused on the relationship of food with social processes and identities such as caste, class, ethnicity, gender, race and religion. However, in recent years, one can observe the growing impact of digitalisation on food, and today one cannot understand the consumption of food without being aware of digitalisation, particularly in urban areas. This article examines the effects of digitalisation in the form of social media platforms and online reviews on how food is presented by sellers and consumed by buyers. Food is a particularly ‘generative space’ to understand the impact of the digital on human lives. Exploring how the social life of food has been influenced by digitalisation in New Delhi, I argue that the digitalisation of food is a rich site to explore how new ideas of social life itself are constructed. The growing intersection between food habits and digital modes, particularly in urban India, has larger implications on ideas of caste, class and labour.