Conflicting values of ethical consumption in diverse worlds – A cultural approach

Abstract

This paper examines the plurality of ethical consumption and aims to illustrate how consumers cope with its complexity in the context of everyday food consumption. This study seeks to outline the tensions that consumers inevitably face when pursuing ethical choices and to shed light on the various ways in which they solve these tensions in the rhythms of everyday life.The research applies Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of orders of worth as an interpretive framework. The research data has been collected from Finnish online discussion forums in which consumers debate various aspects of ethical food consumption. The analysis indicates that the participants in the discussions recognize various understandings of ethical consumption which may be accompanied by insecurities about the "right" ones. However, the research suggests that consumers are able to solve fundamental tensions in ethical food consumption by carrying out different types of practices.

A cosmopolitan return to nature: how combining aesthetization and moralization processes expresses distinction in food consumption

“…As a result, the respondents re-moralize their cosmopolitan consumption by adhering to global moral trends, but they do so only in a limited way, without losing too much of their aesthetic preferences. These findings complement those of previous research, which indicates that the moral ideal of reasonableness leads consumers to balance ethical and unethical consumption behaviour in order to avoid excesses (Pecoraro and Uusitalo 2014). By creating the link between aesthetic and moral cosmopolitanism ideals through re-aesthetization and remoralization processes in a food trend such as New Nordic Food, the consumers thus resolve the tensions they experience when integrating different societal ideals.…”

“…Given that this consumption trend is not part of everyday Nordic cooking, it cannot be learned through interaction with the local population. As a result, the consumers adopt about this trend only in its highly aestheticized form, which allows for the integration of a premium consumption trend with anti-market ideals (Pecoraro and Uusitalo 2014). While previous research has described romantic returns to nature (Belk and Costa 1998;Canniford and Shankar 2013), the respondents' discourses conversely do not advocate for the escape from modern, urban culture (Canniford and Karababa 2013;Canniford and Shankar 2013).…”

“…While the aesthetic side of food consumption has been connected to cosmopolitanism, its moral side has not followed the same trend, although previous research has indicated that cosmopolitanism correlates positively with ethical consumption behaviour (Grinstein and Riefler 2015). The question therefore arises to what extent cosmopolitanism is compatible with ethical consumption, consumption practices that take into account (and often seek to alleviate) negative corollary effects of consumption on the environment and other citizens of the world (Pecoraro and Uusitalo 2014). To do so, this paper answers two specific research questions.…”

Celebrity chefs, consumption politics and food labelling: Exploring the contradictions

“…A key focus of empirical studies has been on the behaviour of ethical consumers (e.g. Connolly and Prothero, 2008;Pecoraro and Uusitalo, 2013), but it is also recognised that such behaviour is necessarily facilitated or hindered by the structure and operation of supply chains linking primary and intermediate producers to retailers and consumers (Gale and Haward, 2011;Stringer, 2006). It is through these processes that many of the contested aspects of ethical consumption become apparent.…”

Moral conventions in food consumption and their relationship to consumers’ social background

“…Some use justification regimes as an analytical toolbox to categorize observed consumer concerns (Andersen, 2011;Evans, 2011;Korzen and Lassen, 2010;Truninger, 2011). Others analyse discourses about, for example, ethical consumption (Grauel, 2014;Pecoraro and Uusitalo, 2013). However, the role of socioeconomic structures in prompting different orders of worth has not been examined in the literature and the often-used qualitative methodology precludes generalization to a wider population.…”