Household Consumption and Environmental Change: Rethinking the Policy Problem Through Narratives of Food Practice

Central to debates concerned with societal transition towards low-carbon living is the imperative to encourage individual subjects to shift their behaviours to support less consumptive ways of life: eating less meat, consuming less energy and water, and wasting less of what we do consume. Exploring narratives derived from 30 interviews with householders living in and around a UK city, this article considers the dynamics surrounding consumption, unpacking the notion that consumers act as agents of choice. Drawing on accounts of daily routines, the article pays close attention to the complexity of social, cultural and material factors that shape narratives of daily life, where food emerges as a core organising principle. This suggests that food practice provides a nexus point around which change can be more effectively conceptualised for public policies aimed at inculcating more sustainable ways of life. That is, through an understanding of food practice, we can explore means of locking and unlocking wider practices deemed unsustainable.</jats:p

Household consumption and environmental change:rethinking the policy problem through narratives of food practice

Central to debates concerned with societal transition towards low-carbon living is the imperative to encourage individual subjects to shift their behaviours to support less consumptive ways of life: eating less meat, consuming less energy and water, and wasting less of what we do consume. Exploring narratives derived from 30 interviews with householders living in and around a UK city, this article considers the dynamics surrounding consumption, unpacking the notion that consumers act as agents of choice. Drawing on accounts of daily routines, the article pays close attention to the complexity of social, cultural and material factors that shape narratives of daily life, where food emerges as a core organising principle. This suggests that food practice provides a nexus point around which change can be more effectively conceptualised for public policies aimed at inculcating more sustainable ways of life. That is, through an understanding of food practice, we can explore means of locking and unlocking wider practices deemed unsustainable.</jats:p

Class, food, culture: exploring 'alternative' food consumption

Contributing empirically, methodologically and conceptually to the body of work that remains unconvinced of the ‘death of class’ (Pahl 1989), this thesis explores the resonance of class culture in contemporary ‘alternative’ food practice. Indeed, arising from disenchantment with conventional industrial food production and supply chains, ‘alternative’ food networks aim to provide a means to reconnect consumers, producers and food (Kneafsey et al. 2008). By taking seriously the act of shopping for food as culturally meaningful and not merely a practice of routinely provisioning the home (Lunt and Livingstone 1992) this thesis then argues that ‘alternative’ food practice provides a platform for the performance of class identities. That is, both structurally and culturally, class is thought to matter to people (Sayer 2011), and is elucidated and reproduced through food practice. By means of mixed methods data collection; participant observation, survey, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, this study provides support for a Bourdieusian approach to class analysis. In particular, the thesis makes use of Bourdieu’s toolkit of concepts by conceiving of class as a relative ‘position’. This is understood to be achieved via the moral derision of the ‘other’, where participants draw moral boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ who partake in its consumption. In this way, the field of ‘alternative’ food practice seems not only ground from which to observe class. Rather, ‘alternative’ food is understood to be appropriated as a resource of ‘distinction’ (Bourdieu 1984) that is then figured in the very maintenance and reproduction of class culture. This interface between class, food and culture may prove consequential for those seeking substantive alternatives to conventional foodways. Crucially, it is argued that by imagining less socially and culturally uniform strategies to promote ‘alternative’ food practice, we may unlock their potential to provide an equitable and sustainable food future. To this end, by elucidating the moral significance of class in the field of ‘alternative’ food practice, this thesis has wider implications in carving a role for sociological enquiry in the emerging field of ‘sustainability science’ (Marsden 2011)

Economy, ecology, society: the importance of class for the sustainable development agenda

This paper draws on a wider programme of work that explores the efforts of the sustainable development agenda to realise an equal balance of interaction between ecology, economy and society, and indeed, how such a balance may be achieved in light of the social diversity exhibited across regional, national and international contexts. More specifically, this paper addresses the continued relevance of class in contemporary British society and what this means for the accomplishment of equitable sustainability. To do so, I provide an outline of this ongoing theoretical and empirical project in which places of alternative food networking in South Wales are seen to represent sites for the distillation of different ‘capital’ resources within the wider social field as a means of maintaining boundaries of ‘distinction’. Crucially, I argue that there is a need – perhaps against dominant intellectual trends – for the social sciences to pay continued attention to the sociology of class if there is to be any coherent response to the weighty environmental challenges that face ‘our common future’. Indeed, I posit that there is a need to build a solid bridge between the sustainable development agenda and sociological class analysis and that doing so offers the possibility of subtle and nuanced approaches to global environmental problems. Essentially, for such a nuanced understanding of global environmental problems to be realised, I suggest that greater theoretical and empirical attention be turned to the ‘classed’ citizen-consumer

Revisiting ‘Eating Out’:Understanding 20 years of change in the practice in three English cities

In 2015 and 2016 we took what is a rare opportunity in the social sciences to revisit the study Eating Out, which was first conducted in 1995 by Warde and Martens. This study explored, from the point of view of diners, the increasingly popular practice of eating main meals in commercial establishments. To explore changes and continuities in such a practice over time, we take instruction from the technique of what Burawoy calls the ‘focused revisit’. This involves revisiting sites studied at an earlier time, but is distinguishable from a re-analysis or the updating of previous studies. The purpose of a revisit is to understand and explain variation in what is observed without being enslaved by the rules that govern ‘replicable’ research. By applying principles of an ethnographic revisit to a mixed method study of ‘eating out’ and ‘eating in’, we were able to re-engage with the topics and literatures arising (e.g. sustainable consumption, eating out as a practice), rather than solely updating the 1995 analysis with the same purposes in mind. This chapter explores the logic of revisiting Eating Out and reflects upon the prospects and challenges afforded by this exciting opportunity. Taking instruction from Glucksmann’s approach, we ‘open up’ the research process and discuss the ‘in between’ stage, between data collection and presentation of findings, to share a number of concrete examples of the challenges of a sociological revisit

Seagrass meadows globally as a coupled social–ecological system: Implications for human wellbeing

Seagrass ecosystems are diminishing worldwide and repeated studies confirm a lack of appreciation for the value of these systems. In order to highlight their value we provide the first discussion of seagrass meadows as a coupled social–ecological system on a global scale. We consider the impact of a declining resource on people, including those for whom seagrass meadows are utilised for income generation and a source of food security through fisheries support. Case studies from across the globe are used to demonstrate the intricate relationship between seagrass meadows and people that highlight the multi-functional role of seagrasses in human wellbeing. While each case underscores unique issues, these examples simultaneously reveal social–ecological coupling that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries. We conclude that understanding seagrass meadows as a coupled social–ecological system is crucial in carving pathways for social and ecological resilience in light of current patterns of local to global environmental change