Who’s Milking It? Scripted Stories of Food Labour

McCarthy, Lucy; Touboulic, Anne; Glover, Jane

Abstract

This article explores representations of food labour at different stages in the supply chain through a labour process theory perspective. Employing multi-modal critical discourse analysis it analyses visual data collected from three television programmes focused on dairy production and consumption. The research sheds light on the power relations inherent to food production and the devaluing of manual food labour in supply chains, which are shaped by the current capitalist socio-political environment. The findings expose ways in which media can reinforce dominant understandings of food supply chains, while making aspects of food labour invisible.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 24, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 22, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Deposit Date: Feb 2, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 22, 2021
• Journal: Work, Employment and Society
• Print ISSN: 0950-0170
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8722
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 36
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1038–1059
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017021997357
• Keywords: food labour; labour process theory; multi-modal critical discourse analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5288462
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0950017021997357