A carrot isn't a carrot isn't a carrot : tracing value in alternative practices of food exchange

Questions of value are central to understanding alternative practices of food exchange. This study introduces a practice-based approach to value that challenges the dominant views, which capture value as either an input for or an outcome of practices of exchange (value as values, standards, or prices). Building on a longitudinal ethnographic study on food collectives, I show how value, rather than residing in something that people share, or in something that objects have, is an ideal target that continuously unfolds and evolves in action. I found that people organized their food collectives around pursuing three kinds of value-ideals, namely good food, good price and good community. These value-ideals became reproduced in food collectives through what I identified as valuing modes, by which people evaluated the goodness of food, prices and community. My analysis revealed that, while participating in food collectives in order to pursue their value-ideals, people were likely to have differing reasons for pursuing them and tended to attach different meanings to the same value-ideal. I argue that understanding how value as an ideal target is reproduced through assessing and assigning value (valuing modes) is essential in further explorations of the formation of value and in better understanding the dynamics of organizing alternative practices of food exchange.Peer reviewe

Academic Knowledge Production : Framework of Practical Activity in the Context of Transformative Food Studies

We have seen an emergence of transformative food studies as part of sustainability transitions. While some scholars have successfully opened up their experiences of pursuing transformation through scholar-activism, assumptions underlying researchers' choices and how scholars orient to and go about their work often remain implicit. In this article, we bring forth a practice theoretical understanding of knowledge production and advocate that researchers turn to examining their own research practice. We ask how to make our own academic knowledge production/research practice more explicit, and why it is important to do so in the context of transformative food studies. To help scholars to reflect on their own research practice, we mobilize the framework of practical activity (FPA). We draw on our own experiences in academia and use our ethnographic studies on self-reliant food production and procurement to illustrate academic knowledge production. Thus, this article provides conceptual and methodological tools for reflection on academic research practice and knowledge production. We argue that it is important for researchers to turn to and improve their own academic practice because it advances academic knowledge production in the domain of transformative food studies and beyond. While we position ourselves within the qualitative research tradition, we believe that the insights of this article can be applied more broadly in different research fields and across various methodological approaches.Peer reviewe

In the shadows of carbon

Non peer reviewe

Kuluttaja-kansalaisen kritiikki ja uudenlaiset talousmallit: uusintava ja moninainen toimijuus ruokataloudessa

Peer reviewe

Maatalouden kehityksen suunnanmuutos: Energiaintensiivisestä tehotuotannosta työintensiiviseen lähituotantoon

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Kopista ulos - tutkijat käytäntöteoreettisen tajun jäljillä

Teos kertoo perehtymisestä käytäntöteoreettisiin tutkimussuuntauksiin, jotka ovat ajankohtaisia monilla tutkimusalueilla. Tekstit käsittelevät ja edistävät keskeneräisiä, henkilökohtaisia oppimisprosesseja, joista ei ole tapana kertoa julkaisuissa. Kirja antaa realistisen kuvan tutkijoiden arjesta. Tutkimuskäytännön kehittämisessä ei ole kyse vain uuden sanaston omaksumisesta. Kirjasta selviää mitä muuta se vaatii. Kirjasta voi olla iloa erityisesti niille, jotka haluavat perehtyä käytäntöteorioihin tai muuten joutuvat käsittelemään suhdettaan tarjolla oleviin tutkimuskäytännön muotoihin

Comprehensive study to design advanced metal-carbide@garaphene and metal-carbide@iron oxide nanoparticles with tunable structure by the laser ablation in liquid

Core-shell nanoparticles represent a class of materials that exhibit a variety of properties. By rationally tuning the cores and the shells in such nanoparticles (NPs), a range of materials with tailorable properties can be produced which are of interest for a wide variety of applications. Herein, experimental and theoretical approaches have been combined to show the structural transformation of NPs resulting to the formation of either NiFexCy encapsulated in ultra-thin graphene layer (NiFe@UTG) or Ni3C/FexCy@FeOx NPs with the universal one-step pulse laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) method. Analysis suggests that carbon in Ni3C is the source for the carbon shell formation, whereas the final carbon-shell thickness in the NPs originates from the difference between Ni3C and FexCy phases stability at room temperature. The ternary Ni-Fe-C phase diagram calculations reveal the competition between carbon solubility in the studied metals (Ni and Fe) and their tendency toward oxidation as the key properties to produce controlled core-shell NP materials. As an application example, the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution current on the different NPs is measured. The electrochemical analysis of the NPs reveals that NiFe@UTG has the best performance amongst the NPs in this study in both alkaline and acidic media.Peer reviewe