Solo or Social Chefs: Importation and Deprivation Factors as Determinants of Participating in Communal Cooking and Communal Eating Practices in Prisons

Abstract

Prison food studies found that communal cooking improves peer support, agency, well-be-ing, and construction of new identities or social status. However, the decision to cook withothers, rather than alone, remains an underexplored dimension of prison life. This studyfills that gap by examining the extent to which both personal characteristics and prisonconditions associate with communal cooking and eating practices, drawing on the theoreti-cal frameworks of the importation and deprivation models. Using data from the Life-in-Custody Study IV and the Food-in-Custody Study IV, with 1,519 participants across all 28Dutch prison locations, this study provides a first quantitative insight into the communalcooking and eating practices of a large and diverse group of incarcerated individuals. Thefindings show that several importation and deprivation factors are significantly associatedwith participation in communal food practices: having a younger age, a national (Dutch)background, more available cooking time, sharing a cell, and satisfaction with one’s owncooked meals. These findings identified which individual characteristics and deprivationsassociate with (non-)participation of communal cooking, providing policymakers a foun-dation to develop more opportunities for communal food practices, ensuring everyone hasaccess to its benefits.