Paper short abstract:

Rather than interrogate and challenge narratives around the impact of science and technology on everyday cooking practices as imagined by designers and marketers, this paper adopts a reverse perspective and argues that domestic kitchens are ideal places from whence to study how futures are made.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary kitchens are increasingly smart. Wired food processors offer a choice of recipes and prepare food for busy cooks, while smartphone apps propose meals or shop online. Whereas designers and marketers still seem to be imagining the futuristic kitchen in the (not quite yet) smart home, domestic cooks are already making the future from within their kitchens. Digital food processors such as Thermomix, various smartphone apps and meal-kit providers such as HelloFresh are being used since years in domestic kitchens across the globe. Rather than interrogate and challenge oft-repeated narratives around the impact of science and technology on everyday practices such as domestic cooking as imagined by designers and marketers, this paper adopts a reverse perspective and argues that contemporary domestic kitchens are ideal places from whence to study how futures are made. Domestic cooks, as they shop, process, prepare and/or eat food, engage with and contribute to (digital) knowledge on a daily basis, yet they are seldom considered technological pioneers or future-making figures. Based on ongoing ethnographic research in diverse kitchens in Frankfurt and the Rhein-Main region in Germany, this paper advances the notion of the cyborg cook (following Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto) to critique and overcome commonly held assumptions about, first, domestic cooks and, second, who makes the future in the context of everyday life.