5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Food in the Anthropocene is one of the main factors explaining transformations in the human body and environment. It is posible to identify new forms of social inequality from the nutritional composition of everyday meals. Especially because foods become technological artifacts that include nutrients but also a planned design to increase their sales. Food goes beyond Michel Foucault’s notion of dispositif, because its intervention on life include both human and non-human actors. A perspective that is not new to the social sciences but which poses analytical challenges in the Anthropocene.

The NOVA classification addresses only part of this problem by identifying degrees of food processing. However, it is necessary to incorporate the social relationships and cultural identities that also define everyday foods. This session aims to analyze food as technologies to reconstruct the social, bodily and environmental impact of meals in the Anthropocene. The call includes both theoretical reflections on the global nature of this nutritional inequality and case studies that analyze food composition as a factor of social exclusion.