TY - JOUR
T1 - “We Can ‘Break Bread’ Virtually:” Routinized and Ritualized Aspects of Family Food Provisioning in the United States During Lockdown
AU - Oleschuk, Merin
AU - Maniotes, Christopher R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Routines and rituals are ubiquitous across scholarship in family communication yet are overlapping and idiosyncratic concepts, making a clear distinction between them difficult. This paper builds clarification around the concepts by arguing for attending to what we call the routinized and ritualized aspects of family activities. We demonstrate this approach’s utility through a qualitative thematic discourse analysis of 697 Twitter posts discussing the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on family food practices in the United States. We identify three themes that convey the broad impacts of lockdown conditions on family food practices: bolstering, disruption, and reimagining. We then analyze each theme’s salience within daily meals and holiday meals–two food provisioning sites frequently considered routines and rituals, respectively. Theoretically, this paper forwards a conceptualization of routines and rituals that delineates the symbolic and instrumental elements embedded within each; empirically, it demonstrates the multifaced effects of the pandemic on family food life.
AB - Routines and rituals are ubiquitous across scholarship in family communication yet are overlapping and idiosyncratic concepts, making a clear distinction between them difficult. This paper builds clarification around the concepts by arguing for attending to what we call the routinized and ritualized aspects of family activities. We demonstrate this approach’s utility through a qualitative thematic discourse analysis of 697 Twitter posts discussing the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on family food practices in the United States. We identify three themes that convey the broad impacts of lockdown conditions on family food practices: bolstering, disruption, and reimagining. We then analyze each theme’s salience within daily meals and holiday meals–two food provisioning sites frequently considered routines and rituals, respectively. Theoretically, this paper forwards a conceptualization of routines and rituals that delineates the symbolic and instrumental elements embedded within each; empirically, it demonstrates the multifaced effects of the pandemic on family food life.
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U2 - 10.1080/15267431.2023.2231910
DO - 10.1080/15267431.2023.2231910
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85164472692
SN - 1526-7431
VL - 23
SP - 310
EP - 324
JO - Journal of Family Communication
JF - Journal of Family Communication
IS - 3-4
ER -