Born Pre-polluted: Shopping for the Organic Child.

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Consumer Studies Network

Abstract

The infant as “pure” and “vulnerable” is a powerful cultural ideal present in discourses of mothering, foodwork and consumption. These discourses suggest that in the age of rampant chemical contamination, mothers should strive to preserve children’s purity by feeding them organic food and selecting non-toxic toys, lotions, and other commodities. Elsewhere, we have shown how mothers internalize these discourses and evaluate their mothering in relation to the figure of the organic child. In this paper, we turn our attention to the cultural emergence and reproduction of the organic child. Specifically, we analyze the construction of this ideal in the environmental health movement and the marketing of eco-friendly commodities. Our analysis shows how the environmental health movement was integral to framing children as “pre-polluted” (i.e., contaminated before birth). This frame threatens potent cultural constructions of childhood; if purity is a defining feature of the child, pre-pollution spells the end to the perfect childhood before it begins. We also demonstrate how a cultural anxiety about pre-polluted children is used to market non-toxic foods. Marketing combines racialized, gendered and classed images and narratives of environmental purity with stories of a perfect childhood. Our study contributes to research on cultural constructions of childhood by identifying the emergence and reproduction of the organic child ideal within food marketing.

Authors

• Norah MacKendrick

• Kate Cairns, Rutgers University