Lecture 4. Kitchen Part 2

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created by:

Martina Tanga


from the module:

Contested Spaces: Colony, Plantation, School, Prison, Kitchen, Closet

This lecture continues the theme of labor in the kitchen into the second half of the 20th century. The lecture will examine the tension between public and private, communal and individual spaces in the preparation and consumption of food. The notion of the communal kitchen puts pressure on the increasingly private and isolated workspace created by the conditions of industrial capitalism. Particularly in the west, these conditions create a physical separation of household space from public space and of domestic economy from political economy. However, the concept of communal kitchen is complicated when re-contextualized in a communist context. Further, these binaries become even more complex when considered vis-à-vis a post 1989 global socioeconomic moment. The goal of this lecture is for students to understand the different - and sometimes competing - discourses of labor within the domestic sphere of the kitchen. By studying the social organization of bodies within this space, students are invited to reflect on their own kitchens at home: who does the shopping, cooking, and cleaning? What changes can we make to make domestic labor equitable and non-gender specific?

supporting documents:

Handout

Quiz with Answers

Lecture Notes