Five peelers, 5,000 potatoes: How collaborative cooking and eating in the Woodcraft Folk is building co-operation from the ground up
Anna Blewett
What the paper says
This short article explores the potential of ‘clans’ — mixed-aged working parties responsible for preparing, serving and clearing up after meals — to embed multi-generational co-operation at Woodcraft Folk camps. These residential events, where children and young people greatly outnumber responsible adults, are shaped by the need for sustenance, shelter, purpose, and a sense of belonging; this amounts to a huge amount of physical and emotional labour. Amid (perhaps because of) these conditions, the Woodcraft Folk model of clans creates significant displays of creative collaboration, joint problem solving, and peer-to-peer support. The experiences of Wivenhoe Woodcraft Folk in Essex suggests the perennial obstacles to and opportunities of co-operation play out most positively in tiny ad‑hoc field kitchens, embedding a habit of collaborative thinking and acting in our young people.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.