Abstract:
This research seeks to explore how the physical spaces of food consumption are changing in urban contemporary China, and examine how ideas of China’s past and future are mobilized in the discourse surrounding eating and food consumption. Finally the interactions between these physical spaces and the construction of discourses of food hygiene and purity are discussed. These questions are explored through a variety of popular and academic sources. In seeking to answer these questions, I focused on the use of hygiene discourse to marginalize street food vendors, and promote as friendly and comfortable the physical spaces of fast food restaurants, as well as the commodification of China’s past in Cultural Revolution-themed restaurants. Additionally, I examine the ways in which certain forms of sociality are fostered through and encouraged by the designed spaces of food consumption.
Description:
43 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Geography and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Science, Spring 2015.