Youth Centres as Foodscapes and Informal Learning Environments in Finland

YOUNG

People use food not only as nourishment but also as a form of cultural and social expression in their everyday lives. Young people’s attitudes, eating habits and cultural expressions through food are affected by their socioeconomic conditions and class. Additionally, their eating and drinking habits are affected by peer groups and social norms in youth cultural spaces. Since each person negotiates their relationship to food choices and meals differently, it is necessary to conduct studies on how young people learn to express their identity through food in their leisure time.

The article discusses the complex relationship between young people and food outside traditional learning environments, such as schools. The article focuses on food-related activities at youth centres, where young people go voluntarily, are empowered as participants in the activities and interact in a peer group without any curricular pressures. Our main aim is to explore youth centres as foodscapes in order to understand the food-related learning that occurs through the activities organized at these centres.

The article analyses youth centres as foodscapes, a perspective that has not yet been adopted in the research on youth work. Foodscapes are part of the food system, defined as the places and areas where food is handled and available. They encompass all human access to food and the psychological, social, cultural, economic and political effects of food at the micro and macro levels. Foodscapes can be subdivided into physical environments of tastes, routines, social interaction, commercialism and discursive environments, which, according to Dolphijn (2004), are characterized by the interaction of different actors and things. From a cultural perspective, they can take for example the form of dining events. Foodscapes are not permanent; they evolve constantly through interactions between humans and objects.

The concept of a foodscape can be used to examine how food affects people, how food is influenced by decisions and actions and how people live with and through food. Foodscapes can be examined at the macro level from a societal perspective; at the meso level from a regional or local perspective; or at the micro level by looking at a specific place, food or meal. In this study, the concept of the foodscape is examined mainly at the micro level, taking into account community-related perspectives. As a physical space at a youth centre, the foodscape consists of the kitchen, dining areas and nearby grocery store. Some centres also have a small plot of land to farm.

The concept of the foodscape has been used in various contexts, such as in studies of educational institutions and workplaces. However, the concept of an institutional foodscape cannot be applied to youth centres, which should respond to and be reshaped by the aspirations of young people. The preparation and sharing of meals play key roles at youth centres. A meal does not always consist of many different elements; it can take the form of a simple snack. The qualitative aspects of eating and having meals can be studied using the five aspects meal model (FAMM), which was originally designed for evaluating restaurant environments and has previously been used to evaluate, for example, public food services.

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