Gastronomy as an academic discipline: A grounded theory approach

In the present study, it is aimed to investigate the current position of gastronomy as an academic discipline. In accordance with the aim of this study, interviews were held with academicians who were involved in the field of gastronomy and produced academic studies related to this field. In the light of their opinions, the current position of the gastronomy as an academic discipline was investigated. Grounded theory, which is one of the qualitative research designs, was employed in the study. Interviews were held between September 27 and December 7, 2016 with a total of 31 participants. Two of the participants were interviewed by phone due to time constraints. Remaining participants were interviewed at the universities they were affiliated to. Participants were from seven different gastronomy and culinary arts and one food and beverage management department that belonged to seven different universities in Turkey. The voice recordings digitally taken from the participants were converted to scripts. As required by the grounded theory approach, the analysis of the data consisted of three stages, namely open, axial and selective coding through content analysis. According to data analysis, themes and subthemes were formed and thus, it was first determined that the nature of the gastronomy both as a field and concept has characteristics such as 'multi-defined/comprehensive', 'multi-component', 'Interdisciplinary', 'lacking a specific (unique) research question', 'being accepted mainly as practical area' and 'being a new scientific field'. Subsequently, it became clear that there are some developments to be accepted as an academic discipline such as 'gaining attention and developing as an education field', 'the increase in the number and opportunities of publication' and 'the formation of science community' in the field of gastronomy. With respect to the findings, it has emerged that there are also some deficiencies and necessities that are related to the issues such as 'theoretical background', 'education', 'research area', 'the number and opportunities of publication', 'method' and 'idealized gastronomy academics profile'. It is thought that this study will contribute to the literature since there is no empirical study in the Turkish and English literature related to the position of gastronomy field as a scientific discipline.