Poor choice? Smith, Hayek and the moral economy of food consumption

Abstract

His research interests centre upon the politics of economic psychology, the history of the social sciences, and articulations of the self therein.

Multimodal strategies of emotional governance: a critical analysis of ‘nudge’ tactics in health policy

“…Secondly, pre-emptive politics rely on emotions: a predicted eventuality must be affectively judged to be a threat, something to fear. Rising obesity levels are thus represented as a disease risk and economic burden (Glaze and Richardson 2017). 'The felt reality of threat legitimates preemptive action' (Massumi 2010, 54) so that regardless of whether the threat is real, it is brought, through fear, into the present as an 'anticipatory reality' and acted upon as if it were a fact.…”

“…Moreover, these may intersect with wider public discourses of blame and shame to legitimate punitive measures like denying smokers and obese people access to health care or welfare support. For instance, in their analysis of UK public discourses on food banks and obesity, Glaze and Richardson (2017) identify a government strategy of moralising these problems as failures of the working class and their 'poor choices'. In a typically neoliberal discourse, they argue, 'moral judgments about errant behaviour [are used] as a way to govern consumption without interfering with the ideological principle of allowing unrestricted market exchange' (ibid, p3).…”

“…There has been a steady annual increase in UK food poverty since 2008, with over a million emergency food supplies given to families in 2016-17 3 . And yet rather than attributing the dramatic increase in food poverty to austerity policies like the punitive 'universal credit' workfare system (Jitendra, Thorogood, and Hadfield-Spoor 2017), the Cameron government (2010-16) blamed the 'feckless' poor for seeking free handouts, not managing their finances, not knowing how to cook, and making poor choices with their money, spending it on fripperies like tattoos (Glaze and Richardson, 2017).…”

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

“…Horton et al, 2017;Ingram, 2011;Marsden & Morley, 2014). Similarly, contemporary social scientific approaches to the moral economies of food suggest greater attention should be paid to consumption and consumers (Glaze & Richardson, 2017;Wheeler, 2018). This paper engages with these concerns by revisiting two foundational trends in agro-food scholarshipspecifically the application of convention theory (see Ponte, 2016) and the incorporation of insights from contemporary consumption scholarship (see Goodman, 2002).…”

Beyond Alternative Food Networks: Understanding Motivations to Participate in Orti Urbani in Palermo

“…Both Goodman () and Hinrichs () stress that the promotion of the “local” spatial scale within popular and academic discourse around AFNs ignores the fact that this concept is socially constructed and often socially contested. Another criticism deals with the individualization of responsibility (Carolan ; Glaze and Richardson ; Jarosz ). Alternative food movements reflect the trends of globalization and individualization that prompt citizens to “create new arenas for responsibility taking” (Micheletti , 5), guiding consumers’ choices in a certain direction.…”