Ich bin, du bist, er, sie und es ist. Reflections on Food, Family, Dasein and Heidegger.
Authors: Beer, S.
Conference: 31st International Human Sciences Research Conference
Abstract:This paper presents data from a study that asked focus groups to reflect on experiences that had shaped their perceptions of what made food and drink authentic. The data was analysed using descriptive and interpretative phenomenology. A range of different themes emerged from this collaboration one of which related to family. Participants talked about their relationship at all stages in their lives with their children, siblings, parents and grandparents in a way that compared and contrasted these multiple relationships. Thus they would talk about the food of their childhood and then relate this to the food that they share with their children. Much of this discussion seems to be linked to identity and how it is constructed; who am I, who are you, who is he, she and it? These playful and sometimes not so playful reflections seem to speak to Heidegger’s ideas of Dasein; individuals exist and are dependent on a past which they can recognize, but over which they now have no control, and a future which is open and undetermined. What they do with this is up to them and is central to Heideggerian ideas of authenticity where an individual understands their position in the world and takes personal responsibility for it, whilst exhibiting care for what is around them.
Source: Manual