Building Trendy Urban Foodscapes: Labor, (In)Visibility, and Precarity

Keywords: food, labor, informal economy, body, race, gentrification
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 25

Abstract

Work in the food industry is notoriously exploitative and precarious. While working conditions in agriculture, food processing, and fast-food restaurants have received significant attention from scholars and activists, there has not been as much research on labor arrangements in upscale and trendy urban food establishments. These jobs, however, play a central role in creating culturally, aesthetically, and even morally appealing food experiences for young, affluent, college-educated, and primarily white foodies. Under the COVID pandemic, some of these jobs have become “essential” in safely feeding this privileged group of consumers.

This project examines the nature of work in trendy restaurants, bars, and cafés, paying attention to geographic notions of visibility, mobility, and embodiment. Bringing together research on food gentrification and labor geographies, we focus on the similarities and differences between the harsh, physically demanding, racialized, and mostly invisible work happening behind kitchen doors and the more visible, performative, aesthetic, emotional, and often glamorized labor of serving customers in the front of the house. Rather than seeing these different types of jobs dichotomously, we contextualize them within changing labor geographies and rising precarity, pointing to opportunities for collaborative strategies in organizing restaurant workers.

Our research integrates different methods, relying on fieldwork, food media, and public sources, to gather and analyze data about restaurant workers in San Diego – a city with a culturally and geographically diverse food scene serving both tourists and locals.