A crisis of energy

War and heat in the professional kitchens of North East England

Bibliographic Data

ID7742508
AuthorsG Maclean (0000-0003-2526-833X, Edinburgh Napier University), D W Hill (0000-0002-3849-1170, York St John University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-03-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3921 • E-ISSN: 1461-7064
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00113921251324738
OpenAlexW4408460889
LanguageEN
References cited23

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 led to a dramatic increase in energy prices in the United Kingdom. Chefs interviewed in North East England were found already struggling with post-lockdown re-opening, now huge energy bills and food shortages as a result of war, and then the conditions of a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of that year. This article conceptualises these experiences as a crisis of energy: the re-routing of desire through a consumerist system that is open-ended with war and the production of heat – and that is now collapsing. It is argued that the professional kitchen is situated at the intersection of flows of energy – consumer desire, bellicosity, electricity, the logistical kinesis of commodities – that underpin the everyday practices of the chef but that are now organised in a system of unproductive capitalism that is marked by shocks that disrupt those same practices. In response to the strain of crises, this system has a tendency to perpetuate itself through a retrenchment in consumerist homogeneity and an abandonment of the care and attention required for a convivial and sustainable future – for the food service sector or more broadly

Economic history · Economics · Economy · Energy (signal processing) · Sociology · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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