TABLE MANNERS AND DECORATIONS: Good table manners from the narratives of etiquette manuals
TABLE MANNERS AND DECORATIONS: Good table manners from the narratives of etiquette manuals |
Good manners, etiquette of manuals, legitimation, representations
This work analyzes the existing symbolic tensions in the representations of table etiquette narrated in civility manuals. The delimitation of the theme was due to the repercussion and amplitude of the “table set” on social networks, which exalts the a esthetic game of the table and also because the table etiquette appears as a social situation to which special attention was given in the manuals. Within the general subject, which is table etiquette, we chose three points to be investigated: the utensils, their arrangement at the table and the behavior towards food, in order to elaborate reflections on the approach of the contents, their functionality and applicability well as the author's dialogue strategies. It is intended to investigate, through symbolic disputes, the construction of the authority of the legislators of the label, the profile of its addressees, the mutations and permanence of statements, the structural vestiges present of a content produced in past decades (which represents the continuity of the interest in the subject), the intersection between representation and identification and the question of extension and legitimation. The methodological approach is a historical-social essay of a qualitative nature and is based on bibliographic research, whose technique is based on discourse analysis. The work is also based on documental research in good manners manuals from the cut of the etiquette at the table. The research collection consists of Brazilian edition etiquette manuals published between 1947 and 2010. To understand the object of study, the theoretical framework focuses on the theory of the civilizing process from the contributions of Norbert Elias and Cas Wouters, with the aim of understanding the regulation of behavior practices from the subjectivity of those who are involved in normalizing habits. We also consider Bourdieu's understanding of taste and style, Simmel's sociology of the meal, and Collins and Evans' theory of extension and legitimation.