ABSTRACT
The transactional agency of food, then, enables an entry into the enactment of a specific configuration of relationships, of creative, effective social action to which power and 'identity' are integral. It is germane to the argument of the book that discordances, dissonances, and ruptures are intrinsic to the constant work of food in eliciting normality. By focusing on the agency of food, this book gives the reader access to the anxious and collaborative work that goes into producing everyday life in hitherto unexplored ways. Additional insights into the wider networks of normality generated by food were provided by watching television cookery shows, often in the company of the author consultants or research assistant. The first is how a study of the everyday can be broached through a description of the collaborative agency of food. In doing so, it delineates the beginnings of an alternative theoretical vision.
