A Qualitative Methodology for Studying Parent–Child Argumentation

This chapter provides a detailed exposé of the research methodology on which the investigation of parent–child argumentation during mealtime is based. In the first part, the conceptual tools adopted for the analysis of argumentative discussions between parents and children, i.e., the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion and the Argumentum Model of Topics, are presented. Subsequently, the process of data gathering and the procedures for the transcription of oral data are discussed. Finally, in the last part of the chapter, ethical issues and practical problems in collecting parent–child mealtime conversations present throughout the study are considered

Digital Food and foodways. How online food practices and narratives shape the Italian diaspora

The article discusses the role of online food practices and narratives in the formation of transnational identities and communities. Data has been collected in the framework of a doctoral research project undertaken by the author between 2009 and 2012 with a follow-up in 2014. The working hypothesis of this article is that the way Italians talk about food online and offline, the importance they give to ‘authentic’ food, and the way they share their love for Italian food with other members of the same diaspora reveal original insights into migrants’ personal and collective identities, their sense of belonging to the transnational community and processes of adjustment to a new place. Findings suggest that online culinary narratives and practices shape the Italian diaspora in unique ways, through the development of forms of virtual commensality and online mealtime socialization on Skype and by affecting intra and out-group relationships, thus working as elements of cultural identification and differentiation

Parental discourse and identity management in the talk of indigenous and migrant speakers in Greece and the UK

This article integrates discursive psychology and argumentation studies to discuss the regularities identified in two sets of data – focus group discussions amongst indigenous Greeks residing in Central Northern Greece and interviews with non-indigenous women with children, resident in the greater London area. The initial regularity identified consisted of participants talking as parents and talking about children mobilizing the normative expectations of parenthood in voicing strong views about ‘others’ from ethnic, cultural and racial backgrounds other than those of the speakers. This seemed to function as a form of denial, identifying further regularities in the discursive strategies used by participants and in the lines of arguments developed. Furthermore, two themes emerged as commonplace in talking about ‘others’ in the lines of argument developed by participants – security/insecurity and hierarchies. These regularities are considered and the potentials of analysing discourse from two integrated approaches are discussed

Argupolis: a doctoral program on argumentation practices in different contexts

Argumentation is a form of communicative interaction by means of which social realities - institutions, groups and relationships - are construed and managed. People develop argumentation in numerous purposeful activities: to make sound and well-thought decisions, to critically found their opinions, to persuade other people of the validity of their own proposals and to evaluate others’ proposals. These activities are bound to the contexts in which they take place and are signifi cantly determined by these contexts; thus argumentation too, as the bearing structure of these activities, moulds its strategies in connection with these very different contexts: from families and schools to social and political institutions, from financial markets to media discourse and journalism, from social and ethical debate to the economic and fi nancial sphere