In public debates about the desirability of force feeding in the Netherlands the inclination of people with dementia to refrain from eating and drinking tends to be either taken as their gut-way of expressing their will, or as a symptom of their disease running its natural course. An ethnographic inquiry into daily care, however, gives a quite different insight in fasting by relating it to common practices of eating and drinking in nursing homes. In a nursing home eating and drinking are important social activities that may be shaped quite differently. And while necessary for survival, food and drink also have other qualities: taste, temperature, texture, smell. Whether we want it or not, in the end we all die. But with different modes of care come different modes of dying and of living.

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Food matters : arguments for an ethnography of daily care

A Biographical Study of Food Choice Capacity: Standards, Circumstances, and Food Management Skills

Commensality is eating with others, and marriages are among the most significant commensal relationships. We collected qualitative data about commensality and entry into marriage from twenty couples using two in-depth interviews, the first at about the time couples entered marriage and the second about one year later. Commensal eating was an important component of the courtship process. Entry into marriage marked a transformation in people's commensal careers in which their marital relationship became their primary commensal unit. Meal commensality varied across the daily cycle: Many spouses skipped breakfast or ate breakfast separately, most ate lunch at work, and dinner was the main commensal meal. Greater marital commensality occurred on weekends than weekdays. Partners managed involvement in extra-marital commensal circles by combining their former eating networks. Kin were major participants in commensal circles, with friends, co-workers, and neighbors also included as eating partners. Overall, commensality was an important component of the way people ‘do marriage’.

Commensal Careers at Entry into Marriage: Establishing Commensal Units and Managing Commensal Circles:

............................................................................................................. 5 Introduction: mobility, migration and diaspora ........................................... 8 Diaspora historical context and development ............................................. 11 Thesis objectives and goals ............................................................................ 20 Thesis organisation plan ................................................................................. 25 Chapter One: Exploring Filipino fiesta celebrations Overseas ................. 29 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 29 The discourse on Filipino migration and diaspora .......................................... 31 Conceptual framework on migration and diaspora ........................................ 41 1) Various kinds of migrants and transnational communities exist .......... 43 2) Some migration flows are explained by social network theories of migration ............................................................................................... 45 3) Mobile peoples transplant, adapt and develop cultural practices as they settle ............................................................................................... 50 4) Migrant diaspora practices are representations of the homeland's historical context .................................................................................... 52 5) Migration and diaspora challenge long held notions of identity and place .......................................................................................................... 53 6) Some migration processes are influenced and supported by cultural dispositions .............................................................................................. 56 7) Diasporas construct identity through ritual performance and homeland symbols as a home and place-making activity ...................... 57 Methodology: an ethnography of the 'natives' away from 'native land'.......... 61 Chapter 2: The Philippines: A Migrant Nation .......................................... 7

Transnational Migration, Diaspora and Religion: Inscribing Identity through the Sacred (the Filipino Diaspora in New Zealand and Singapore)

Disputing taste: food pleasure as an achievement in interaction.

As an essential yet also mundane everyday activity, eating in all cultures is expressive of both belief-systems and social distinctions that exist within them. While this has been recognized in social science - and, particularly, anthropology - many questions concerning the meanings of foodways within the overall patterns of “post-modern” culture have yet to be tackled. We argue that a novel signification of food consumption is currently taking place: in a social context where attrition of customary practices creates an extended range of options (which, notably, also represents a constraint), some of the needs of self-conscious individuation that arise within such a context are met through eating practices based on personal choice rather than social habit. In this article, the concept of an “eater's career” is used to explore theoretical and methodological dimensions of inquiry into uses of food that are significant for identity formation and maintenance in contemporary society.

Grant O'Neill

Papers

Sustaining identities? Prolegomena for inquiry into contemporary foodways