Between the Multinational Food Industry and Family Households: Mothers as Intermediaries in India’s Neoliberal Consumer Economy

• In Event: 113 - Regular Session. Consumers and Consumption 1

Abstract

This article discusses findings from a consumer survey targeting middle class mothers as agents of change in shifting food and eating practices in urban India resulting from the growing presence of multinational eateries and a new consumer lifestyle centered around corporate branding, shopping malls, and fast food. Although a growing literature explores changing consumption practices in India with the rising presence of foreign retailers there has been no specific focus on the role of mothers in facilitating or resisting these changes. This article views mothers as “intermediaries” experiencing and negotiating change between giant corporate retailers and traditional family food economies. In this way we are able to examine from mothers’ own experiences and perspectives 1) how the structure of eating has changed, 2) how diet has changed with the growing availability of food alternatives, 3) the existence (or not) of concerns and conflicts in the home as a result of these changes and specific strategies mothers employ to negotiate them, 4) perceptions of the causes and culprits of consumer and dietary change and the perceptions of multinational eateries on society as a whole. A particularly concerning outgrowth of these developments has been the sharp increase in health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease among India’s middle class that have been tied to lifestyle and dietary changes. Viewing mothers as intermediaries allows us to see them as key agents in how public policy aimed at remedying the ill effects of these changes could be designed and implemented most constructively.

Author

• Jennifer Parker Talwar, Pennsylvania State University