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

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine how social background influences the way people evaluate and justify their food consumption. Theoretically, the article combines Bourdieu's theory of class-based practices with Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of situated judgement in order to better understand how social class and moral values are connected. Empirically, the article analyses how social class might constrain or enable certain types of justification for food consumption. Using quantitative data on Danish food consumers' attitudes to food, shopping and cooking, together with information on their social background, the analysis investigates the relation between consumers' use of five orders of worth (Civic, Industrial, Inspired, Domestic and Health, and Market) and their cultural, economic and social capital as well as socio-demographic background. The main results are that four of the orders of worth (Civic, Industrial, Inspired and Market) are strongly related to consumers' cultural capital, and to some extent social capital, but not to economic capital. Other background variables such as age and gender also influence which consumers adhere to different food evaluation criteria. The results support the notion that plural moralities are at play in food consumption, especially within groups with high cultural capital.

Healthy food is nutritious, but organic food is healthy because it is pure: The negotiation of healthy food choices by Danish consumers of organic food

“…This research indicates that while environmental concerns are the driving preferences of a relatively small group of highly reflexive and politically motivated consumers, other groups of consumers are motivated in their choices by other, individual concerns (Hjelmar, 2011;Grauel, 2014). A study by Stamer (2018) using the Convention approach found that people with high levels of cultural capital (defined by educational level, cultural activities and number of books in household), women, and older people, were all more likely to justify food purchases by referring to the common good (e.g. preserving the health of the environment) than other groups.…”

“…Health concerns have been found to be linked to different orders of worth (Stamer, 2018;Andersen, 2011;Truninger, 2011). However, given the ubiquity of health concerns connected with the consumption of organic food as well as general food consumption (Ilmonen, 2011), our study does not assume that healthiness is tied to a specific regime of justification.…”

“…It is also affected by political reflections and moral debates. People's values, and what they see as 'good' for themselves, their families and society, are enacted in consumption, and therefore if we are to understand the consumption of organic food products we need to investigate how preferences are justified and negotiated (Stamer, 2018;Boltanski & Thevenot, 1999). Moral norms often underlie consumer activities.…”

Market coordination and the making of conventions: qualities, consumption and sustainability in the agro-food industry

“…It was mobilized extensively between the late 1990s and mid-2000s (see Murdoch & Miele, 2004;Wilkinson, 1997) to examine 'alternative food networks, coordination and governance of agro-food value chains, and the so-called "quality turn" in food production and consumption' (Ponte, 2016, p. 12). Convention theory is now experiencing something of a resurgence as new branches of agro-food research start to embrace it (including consumption, see Stamer, 2018;Thorslund & Lassen, 2017). Increased engagement has been accompanied by a proliferation in the ways that 'convention' and associated concepts of 'quality' and 'orders of worth' are used.…”

Convenções de qualidade em queijos artesanais no Brasil, Espanha e Itália

“…A importância atribuída pelos consumidores à qualidade dos alimentos tem aumentado nos últimos anos, envolvendo tanto atributos intrínsecos, como teores de gor dura e sal, quanto atributos extrínsecos, como sua origem geográfica e natureza do método de processamento, grau de susten tabilidade dos processos envolvidos, inocui dade do alimento (GRUNERT, 2005;STAMER, 2018).…”