Editorial

Citation

Backett-Milburn, K. (1999), "Editorial", British Food Journal, Vol. 101 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/bfj.1999.070101gaa.001

Editorial

About the Guest EditorKathryn Backett-Milburn is Senior Research Fellow (B.S.A. Sociology of Food Study Group/SCOFF Convenor), Research Unit in Health and Behavioural Change, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The theme of this special issue of the British Food Journal reflects growing interest in how spatial and temporal factors can affect eating behaviours and practices. The articles report work by sociologists, anthropologists, geographers and epidemiologists, some working collaboratively. Issues explored include understanding how changes in the timing and scheduling of everyday life are intimately related to the growth in convenience foods; and exploring how locality, time and diet interact with lifecourse position. Place comes to the fore in the article focusing on issues of food choice, preferences and availability within the context of rural localities in Scotland. Finally, the debate around food deserts in areas of deprivation is illuminated by articles reporting innovative methodological approaches and recent findings concerning mapping access and barriers to food outlets.

Space, place and time: contextualising food choice and eating behaviour

The 1990s have witnessed an increasing focus on making sense of the regularly demonstrated statistical associations between locality, health and health relevant behaviours such as dietary choice. Researchers have argued that it is important to examine the health promoting or threatening aspects of particular social environments (Macintyre et al., 1993); and that "the characteristics of places may be as important as the characteristics of people for an understanding of particular patterns of health" (Phillimore, 1993). Issues of food and feeding, so long studied by social anthropologists in the contexts of particular localities and communities (Fieldhouse, 1986), have come to the fore in the UK because of concern about the links between poor diet and the increased morbidity and mortality risks of people living in areas of social deprivation (Acheson, 1998).

It has been claimed that part of this problem stems from inadequate physical and economic access to healthy foods in these areas; and the imprecisely defined and under-researched term "food deserts" has entered popular discourse as a way of describing this complex situation. However, concepts of place, space and time are equally valuable in illuminating food choice and eating behaviour generally, and separately from their health implications. Where, when and what people eat, and how this both reflects, affects and structures everyday social life have been studied in the Nations Diet Programme. The many publications emerging from this Programme (Caplan, 1997; Murcott, 1998) are as illuminating of the structural and cultural features of contemporary Britain as they are in charting particular dietary or consumption patterns and practices.

The BSA Sociology of Food Group/SCOFF one-day conference

This special issue includes papers, versions of which were presented at a one-day conference, "Space, place and time: contemporary issues in food research". The conference was organised by the BSA Sociology of Food Group/SCOFF, and took place in Glasgow in October 1998, attracting over 60 participants. Its aim was to summarise current thinking and research in this area from a variety of social scientific perspectives.

The conference attracted a mixed audience of researchers, policy makers and practitioners who had travelled from all parts of the UK. Participants not only took an active part in questions and the lively discussion following each presentation but they also continued these exchanges and networking into the coffee and lunch breaks. If assessment of the level of noise and animation of informal discussion constitutes an evaluation method then this conference certainly scored highly!

Such an atmosphere reflected one of the main aims of the BSA Sociology of Food Group/SCOFF (Scottish Colloquium on Food and Feeding). The group, which has met in Scotland since 1990, aims to promote and encourage social scientific research into food and eating, and to foster study and debate of current research, policy and practice issues. However, the thrice-yearly meetings also promote an informal and welcoming atmosphere, consolidated by the always well attended lunches following each meeting. Membership of the group is free to BSA members, and, for a nominal fee, associate membership may be obtained by contacting Judith Mudd, British Sociological Association, Unit 3F/G, Mountjoy Research Centre, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3UR.

Researching space, place and time: theoretical, methodological and empirical developments

The papers in this special issue bring together work from a variety of social scientific perspectives. They demonstrate the range of current work from theoretical and conceptual advances to the development of innovative research methods and how these are being linked in empirical studies.

Alan Warde provides a fascinating discussion of how the rise in use of convenience foods should be understood as part of the re-ordering of time-space relations in everyday life. This, he argues, is not so much about time, or lack of it, but rather about the timing and scheduling of everyday life and concomitant social relationships. Warde traces our ambivalence about convenience foods and their symbolic value. He then unpacks the term "convenience" and argues that such foods are becoming more popular as they are in tune with the rise of other tools and devices which help to re-sequence and re-schedule our time and phase it in with that of other people. Convenience food is as much about time-shifting as it is about time-saving.

This focus on how perceptions of food and healthy eating are intimately linked with ideas about social relationships is continued in Linda McKie's analysis of older people and food. Drawing on a study of the nutritional anthropology of elderly people residing in urban and rural localities, she demonstrates how food related issues were central themes in respondents' demonstration of living independently. These elderly people stressed the importance of "proper meals", as opposed to convenience or ready-made meals. However, such views were presented in the context of whether and how they could achieve such diets within the constraints of locality, finances and physical ageing. McKie also shows how dietary beliefs and practices are re-worked and complexly interwoven with issues of space, place and time over the lifecourse.

The theme of "place" comes to the fore in the paper by Sarah Skerratt which, again, provides a qualitative perspective on food choice and availability in rural and remote areas of Scotland. Drawing on anthropological data from two studies conducted in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, she shows how residents evaluated the contemporary diet and healthy eating in terms of their views about past and present diets, locally and in other non-remote communities. Respondents' accounts suggested that, although they were knowledgeable about what constituted "a healthy diet", this did not resonate with the everyday realities of living in remote localities or with the inadequacies of the food provision infrastructure.

The final two papers move to a consideration of the constraints of place and space in urban areas; and specifically address the current debate about "food deserts". Steven Cummins and Sally Macintyre present preliminary findings from a survey of the location of food outlets in Greater Glasgow Health Board area. They discuss the changes in the organisation and location of food retail space since the 1980s and the implications of this for individual food choice. Their descriptive findings, that both small, independent and multiple-owned food stores were more likely to be situated in the more deprived areas, provide geographically based data about the foodscape of a large Scottish city. Cummins and Macintyre acknowledge, however, that geographically-based availability is only one aspect of understanding why some vulnerable groups continue to find food expensive and inaccessible.

Angela Donkin and colleagues continue with this theme of current policy and research interest in problems of food access for low income households in the UK. Their interdisciplinary research team has begun by developing a quantitative method for taking a spatial, or area perspective on the problem of access. Having described this method, they apply it to explore basic parameters of access in an economically deprived area in England. Looking only at two possible scenarios in this paper, Donkin and colleagues conclude that whilst the population did have reasonable physical access, if walking, to outlets providing reasonably priced foods, economic access for those living on income support appeared, in the first instance, to be more problematic.

This special issue shows the exciting range of theories, methods and findings about space, place and time which are emerging from research in a variety of social scientific disciplines. The BSA/SCOFF one-day conference stimulated exchanges and debates across disciplinary and policy and practice boundaries, and it is hoped that the special issue will continue that process. I would like to thank everyone who helped with the organisation of the conference and special issue, the SCOFF organising committee, particularly Linda McKie and Steven Cummins, and the contributors and reviewers for their timeliness and collaborative support.

Kathryn Backett-Milburn

References

Acheson, D. (1997), Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health, The Stationery Office, London.Caplan, P. (Ed.) (1997), Food, Health and Identity, Routledge, London.Fieldhouse, P. (1986), Food and Nutrition: Customs and Culture, Chapman and Hall, London.Macintyre, S., McIver, S. and Sooman, A. (1993), "Area, class and health: should we be focusing on people or places?" Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 22, pp. 213-4.Murcott, A. (Ed.) (1998), The Nations Diet: The Social Science of Food Choice, Longman, London.Phillimore, P. (1993), "How do places shape health? Rethinking locality and lifestyle in North-East England", in Platt, S. et al. (Eds), Locating Health: Sociological and Historical Explorations, Avebury, Aldershot.