The Holy Gram: Strategy and Tactics in the Primary School Canteen

In this ethnography of three Italian primary school canteens I use de Certeau’s concepts of strategy and tactics to examine how the biopolitical construction of a healthy meal is subjected to resistances by parents, teachers, children, and cooks. I first illustrate how the top–down model on nutrition stems from global and national organizations, is deciphered and transformed by local agencies, and eventually becomes a healthy meal, perfectly balanced in its nutrients. Later, I show how subjects involved in its reception challenge the top–down model and develop intentional tactics that withstand the scientific knowledge of the nutritionists that construct the menu: parents and teachers contest the experts’ authority, cooks cheat on grams, children eat more (or less) than they should. Taking a different approach from studies that highlight the undesirable and coercive outcomes of biopower, I argue that in these school canteens subjects are not trapped by biopedagogies but deploy their agencies by questioning, eluding, and even subverting the rationale of the school meal