Focusing on the context of the COVID-19 crisis, this session explores mediated constructions of care, rest, and productivity. Based on analysis of digital discourses and depictions of food preparation and consumption during the pandemic, Francesca Sobande considers the racial, gender, and class politics of the nexus of media, communication, and consumer culture during times of crisis. Specifically, this session critically examines the socio-political implications of the rise of online documentation of home-baking, familial food consumption practices, and the UK's Platinum Jubilee pudding competition.

Francesca Sobande is a senior lecturer in digital media studies at Cardiff University. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, forthcoming 2022). Francesca is also co-editor with Akwugo Emejulu of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019), and is co-author with layla-roxanne hill of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2022).