1st Edition
Gastrospaces A Philosophical Study of Where We Eat
This book explores the moral and political significance of gastrospaces: the spaces where we eat. It adopts an innovative approach, combining analytic political philosophy and analytic ontology, to lay down the theoretical foundations for a multi- and inter-disciplinary research agenda on the complex interconnections between food and space.
Social science and humanities scholars have studied the ties between food consumption and space from multiple angles. This book sets up a different and more foundational approach, which engages with these bodies of work and integrates them into a coherent framework. While taking the reader through a theoretical journey of varying complexities, the book also illustrates the social, political and cultural significance of gastrospaces by surveying an array of examples from diverse historical and geographical contexts. It then draws on John Rawls’s political philosophy to show that gastrospaces are sites of justice and injustice, and complements this analysis by developing an ontological model for gastrospaces that facilitates a systematic analysis of their social, political and cultural significance. The book ends with a toolbox for the study of gastrospaces that different stakeholders may apply to their respective contexts of intervention.
This book will appeal to philosophers, political scientists, food scholars, geographers, and any interested in the intersection between food and space. By focusing on a wide range of real-world topics related to gastrospaces, such as socially restrictive dress codes, child-free restaurants, speakeasies, racist bans, and gendered kitchen designs, the book will also be of interest to non-academic stakeholders such as urban planners, policymakers, designers, managers, and consumers.
CHAPTER 1: A Guide to Gastrospaces
1.1 Foods, Spaces, and Gastrospaces
1.2 “Gastrospaces”
1.3 Gastrospaces In Hard Times
1.4 The Varieties of Gastrospaces
1.5 Shades and Borders
CHAPTER 2: Perspectives on Food and Space
2.1 Third Places
2.2 Foodscapes (and Foodways)
2.3 Around Tables, Carpets, Trays, …
2.4 Eating Together: Cultivating Conviviality, Commensality, Feasting … and Other Ties
2.5 The Edge of Gastrospaces
CHAPTER 3: Justice, Injustice, and Gastrospaces
3.1 Analytic Philosophy: Tools
3.2 Authors, Texts and Sources
3.3 Analytic Political Philosophy
3.4 The Political Value of Gastrospaces
3.5 Gastrospaces and the Second Moral Power
3.6 Gastrospaces and the First Moral Power
3.7 Gastrospaces, Neutrality, and Institutions
CHAPTER 4: Modeling Gastrospaces
4.1 Introducing Analytic Ontology
4.2 Ontological Models
4.3 Towards an Ontological Model for Gastrospaces
4.4 Systems of Gastrospaces
4.5 Ontological Choices
4.6 Epistemic Authorities
CHAPTER 5: Features, Functions, and Values
5.1 A Dynamic Model
5.2 Features
5.3 Functions
5.4 Values
5.5 Connecting a Moral Powers Approach to the Framework.
5.6 Processes and Authorities of Gastrospace Modeling
5.7 Putting the Framework at Use: Autonomy, Design, Management
CHAPTER 6: A Toolbox for Gastrospaces
6.1 A Unified Framework
6.2 Tools from the Ontological Workshop
6.3 Tools from the Political Philosophy Workshop
6.4 Three Contexts of Application
Biography
Matteo Bonotti is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Monash University.
Andrea Borghini is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan.
Nicola Piras is a Full Researcher in the Centre for Ethics, Politics, and Society at the University of Minho.
Beatrice Serini is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan.
