Everyday Hegemony: Reification, the Supermarket, and the Nuclear Family

This essay argues that the supermarket partakes in the reification of the nuclear family form. The supermarket is a ubiquitous food space, shaping subjectivity through the ordinary aspects of everyday life. The ubiquity of this space obscures the historical nature of the nuclear family, presenting it instead as the natural and necessary structure of kin relations. I begin with a discussion of Georg Lukács’ account of reification, examining the ways reification thus theorized reveals the reifying force of the supermarket. I then make an intervention into Lukács’ notion of reification, attending to the ways domestic labor, procreation, the production of labor power, and the home as the center of consumption support the reification of the nuclear family both in and outside of the supermarket. In conclusion, this analysis points to the connections between the supermarket, the nuclear family form, and the production of climate chaos to argue that reconfigurations of family and food relations are necessary in the face of ongoing and proliferating climate-related crises.