A Plate Full of Food and Care: Investigating Care Practices and Gender Relations at the Crossroads of Sustainability, Innovative Practices, and Digital Platforms

Food-related care work is still predominantly done by women, and the division of labour in households has not fundamentally shifted in recent decades. However, the demands of food-related care work have changed significantly, and mostly women are to reinvent their activities in the kitchen, for example, by using digital technologies of food provisioning. The role of the digitalisation of food provisioning in women’s workload and the possibilities to shift and rearrange gender orders within the household are a rather new topic in the discussion. In response, this contribution analyses to what extent digital channels of food provision enable or change food-related care work. Do they represent potentials towards more sustainability as well as towards more just gender relations? The qualitative study focuses on food provisioning in two urban contexts, namely Berlin and Milan. Drawing from empirical insights, we argue that digital technologies enable care work towards family or household members as well as towards other food chain actors, particularly small-scale farmers. Nevertheless, consumers often reported a feeling of being overwhelmed by the various sustainability requirements. We, therefore, consider it necessary to develop infrastructures and networks—webs of food provision—that minimise this feeling of being overwhelmed.