This study seeks to conceptualise how the occupational identity and culture of chefs is constructed and maintained through both work and social interaction. In addition, this study may also generate findings of relevance for human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality industry in relation to the enduring practical issues of training and the recruitment and retention of chefs, which have long been recognised as managerial challenges within the hospitality industry. Indeed, hospitality managers have attempted in vain to resolve this staffing crisis by changing management and recruitment practices, but seem to overlook the complex cultural issues that underpin the work and identity of chefs. Therefore, this study may indirectly help to get to grips with these HRM issues, by providing a better understanding of the occupational identity and culture of chefs. On a more generic level, this study aims to generate empirical data that informs contemporary debates about the role of work in identity formation and the structure of occupational identities in our contemporary society. This study is thus an attempt to assess, in light of the experiences of chefs, the untested argument that contemporary work holds little meaning for today’s workers. The research was planned in two main stages, an initial stage using unstructured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews as preparation for entering the culture, and a subsequent stage of ethnography (overt participant observation) and reflective interviews. The first stage was used to investigate the chef’s self-concept and explore how chefs construct their own reality on the basis of a personal framework of beliefs, attitudes and values. In-depth interviews were conducted throughout Great Britain and Ireland with fifty-four Michelin-stared chefs. The second stage was used to penetrate the ‘back region’ (Goffman, 1959) of the chefs’ world in order to go beyond what the chefs say about themselves (in the face-to-face interviews) and explore the shared system of meanings that help to perpetuate a sense of cohesion, identity and belonging that defines ‘being a chef’. Ethnographic studies were carried out in four different Michelin-starred kitchens, with participant observation conducted in each kitchen over a period of thirty days on average. Drawing upon the fieldwork, fresh insights into the social structures and processes (i.e. the kitchen ‘ideology’, symbols, rituals, rites and myths) which underpin the creation and maintenance of the occupational identity and culture of chefs are revealed in the chefs’ own words.

This thesis examines the notion of hospitality in light of contemporary food-based artistic practices created from 2000 to 2015 by female artists Sonja Alhauser, Mary Ellen Carroll, Leah Gauthier, Ana Prvacki, Alicia Rfos, Jennifer Rubel I, Miriam Si mun, and Anna Dumitriu, and the experimental food artists Sam Bompas and Harry Parr. The aim is to make sense of how food practices, art, and feminism intersect, especially in light of the gendered history of the food system, including cooking, when opened onto a philosophically developed notion of hospitality. I explore the intricacies of hosting the "other", considering the multiple levels in which the relationship between the host and the guest develops. Hospitality is examined as a continuous cycle of relationships where dynamics and discourses of power and of generosity are constantly rehearsed. I focus on four main stages within the food system: 1) the gathering of edibles; 2) the cooking process; 3) the moment when food is shared and ingested with others; and 4) the digestive process. Throughout this thesis, I consider hospitality as an open structure that sheds light on the understanding of the encounters between human and non-human species-including animal, vegetable, and microbial-in the food chain. My analysis is situated within contemporary debates of gender studies, cultural studies, food studies, and philosophy of hospitality, in particular, Jacques Derrida's ethics of the other, and the imperative that "one must eat well". Eating is discussed as the literal and metaphorical assimilation and incorporation of the other, and incorporates feminist theoretical engagements which highlight Western thought as being structured by a series of gendered dichotomies, including those of nature-culture, male-female, mind-body, object-subject. I argue that the philosophical notion of hospitality and feminist theory enable a critical approach to the food system as a continual ethical imperative for and to the other.

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