Part of the Taste and Interdisciplinary Food Studies Network at Westminster seminar series
Walking tours, long commonplace for fieldtrips in geography, architecture and natural sciences, are now increasingly used in sociology as a form of engaged walking pedagogies (Jackson 2026). This seminar focuses on ‘Walking Sociologically’ with food and taste outside of the classroom, through academic-designed walking food tours in Central London, as part of the module Food, Taste and Consumption. These tours follow traditional culinary tour techniques—food sampling, storytelling, shared eating, fun and entertaining student experience—but ask very different questions. Very little has been written about the paradoxical tensions of sociologists who actually eat and taste together, whilst simultaneously engaging with critical taste studies. This article argues that deeply complex affective entanglements occur when sociology students taste together, which both challenge and reproduce hierarchies of taste, social classification and distinction (Bourdieu 1984) in subtle, multifarious ways.
Location
Room Regent Street 352, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW.
Nearest station: Oxford Circus
About the speaker
Dr Emily Falconer
Dr Emily Falconer is the convenor of Taste and Interdisciplinary Food Studies Network at Westminster, bringing together scholars from across disciplines who share an interest in the social and cultural role of food and taste. Emily is also Co-Convenor for the BSA Food Studies Group. She has recently been awarded Quintin Hogg Trust (QHT) Innovative Project funding for Taste-walking London (2026–2028), which explores the previously unheard stories of ‘food heritage’ through mobile, multi-sensory walking methods.
