THE FOOD IN THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS: INTIMATE AND EXTIMATE

• Main Author: Olha V. Khrabrova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University Publishing 2018-12-01
• Series: Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В.Н. Каразіна. Серія Філософія, філософські перипетії
• Subjects: food; meal; socialization; potlach; intimate; extimate
• Online Access: https://periodicals.karazin.ua/philosophy/article/view/12827/12153

The article is devoted to the meaning of the food for socialization, socio-cultural identification of the human. Sociality of Human is not a simple natural phenomenon, the process of socialization is mediated by various ritual practices. As a universal indicator of the social being, the article deals with food, since it combines the vital necessity for a human as a natural organism and socio-cultural significance of common meals, beyond which no socially important event passes. It is argued that food/table traditions define of social structures, cultural diversity and social-cultural identity. It is noted that the meal is always common. In society food is excluded alone, unlike other natural processes, which appear as exclusively intimate. The process of inclusion (as well as exclusion) into a specific community/genus is marked through the ritual, through the formation and strict observance of table manners and the diet. The process of civilization is generally associated with the normalization of everyday life, which leads to the standardization of food and eating of the feast to overcome the aversion to Another, in order to make it possible of coexistence. Nutrition proves the unevenness and some limited of social relations, defining of the space of intimacy/privacy, access to which is in some measure limited (by age, gender, status, class, money). On the other hand, the expansion, extimation of this space occur during of the collective initiation rituals or in the ethos of hospitality. Thus, the transformation of the food rituals reveals the dialectic of acceptance and disgust, aufheben of which is carried out against the backdrop of cultural averaging, which characterizes the modern society. In the article, the influence of the food rituals on socialization is specified in the definition of the function of potlatch and initiation, the meaning of which is revealed only through a food, which is the material basis of a certain community.