Bloody suffering and durability: How chefs forge embodied identities in elite kitchens

Burrow, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7846-1996, Scott, Rebecca ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2077-8234 and Courpasson, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1961-0496 2024. Bloody suffering and durability: How chefs forge embodied identities in elite kitchens. Human Relations 77 (1) , pp. 111-139. 10.1177/00187267221132936

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Abstract

In this article, we elaborate on the significance of suffering in processes of embodied identity construction. Drawing on interviews with 62 chefs employed in elite kitchens around the world, we make two main contributions. First, we extend our understanding of suffering as a traumatic, alienating experience by theorizing it as a distinctive form of embodied identity work. We show how suffering can function as a mechanism through which people forge an understanding of who they are. Our second contribution extends the first by elaborating on what we call the aesthetics of suffering. We show how suffering can be perversely appreciable, distinguishing and endured in culturally significant, identity-implicative ways. Via this theorization, we progress our understanding of how identities are forged through (and read from) suffering bodies, and add an additional layer of interpretation to research in which matters of embodied identity and suffering are nascent but largely neglected.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	0018-7267
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	6 September 2022
Date of Acceptance:	30 August 2022
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 04:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/152390

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