2025 Theses Doctoral

The Food Systems of Bordeaux: An Exploration of Changing Foodscapes in Local and Global Contexts from the Perspectives of City Residents

Ingraham, Sarah Jennings

This dissertation showed how residents of Bordeaux, a French city with a rich food history, construct foodscapes to maintain health and well-being, given shifts in their food culture due to globalized systems of industrial food production, processing, and distribution linked to ill health and death. To learn different perspectives on access, selection, and the relationship of food to health and well-being, I focused on three segments of the population: middle-aged and older long-term residents, young adults 19-30 years old, and food providers such as store managers and market vendors.

The research method was ethnographic and included interviews, participant observation, interpretation of statistical data, and document analysis of maps, photographs, websites, and multimodal media. Three orientations to food acquisition emerged from participant responses to depict how individuals interacted with their foodscapes: Convenience-oriented, Solution-oriented, and Action-takers.

Five major themes of the study uncovered that all participants valued food-created connections through eating, shopping, and cooking; new ways of thinking about food production and consumption challenged tradition; the most common selection criterion was preference for local foods; all participants chose healthful foods, and a large majority considered balance in their diet; and all participants expressed concern about the future of the food industry and its impact on France. Overall, this research contributes at the foundational level to understanding personal involvement in food systems.