Date of Award
8-11-2015
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Jennifer Patico
Second Advisor
Kathryn Kozaitis
Third Advisor
Emanuela Guano
Abstract
This manuscript is an analysis of human encounters with workplace food. The analysis draws on an ethnographic field project in a Downtown Atlanta, Georgia business office to illustrate that project participants operated food to facilitate specific social processes of agency, affect, cultural movement, participation, and exclusion. Commensality at the project site was a common thread for each social process. I demonstrate that project participants’ experiences with food intersect rapid workplace changes. In presenting workplace food in the function of a cultural lens as a focus of anthropological inquiry, the analysis argues the importance of workplace as a cultural context for understanding human engagement with food. I argue that workplace is an important cultural site because of the intense time and involvement that many have with it. Implications for workplace food include commercial and organizational management uses.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/7397370
Recommended Citation
Arinze, Chinelo, "Eating at the Desk: Human Encounters with Workplace Food." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2015.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/7397370