The Politics of Grocery Shopping - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 646

pointing to some of the contradictions between the imperatives of consumption and citi-
zenship. Citizenship implies a commitment to broader social obligations, whereas—in a
strict sense—consumers are obligated primarily to their personal preferences, tastes, and
the size of their wallets (Jubas 2007). It is not that consumer interests can never be har-
nessed for a greater public good, but questions remain about where and when this mobi-
lization actually takes place. Johnston's (2008) study of a “consumer-citizen hybrid,” in the
case of Whole Foods Market, suggests that in a corporate, profit-oriented context, individ-
ual self-interest is prioritized over citizenship-based objectives. While affluent food con-
sumers undoubtedly have some agency in the marketplace (sending signals to firms about
what foods are desirable, ethical, or objectionable), it is not clear whether consumers have
sufficient agency to meaningfully shape the food system, especially in the absence of effec-
tive state intervention (Johnston 2008; Johnston, Biro, and MacKendrick 2009; Paarlberg
2010; Seyfang 2009). For example, Seyfang (2009) notes that individual consumer choices
are bound within “infrastructures of provision”—that is, the institutional arrangements
and social norms that constrain decision making—that cannot be transformed by individ-
ual consumer choices alone (p.16). In other words, the purchase of a local, organic apple
at a grocery store may encourage a greater quantity and better quality of organic produce
provided in the store, but this choice would have a negligible impact on the institutions of
provision that shape food procurement—such as the mass producers and food distribu-
tion networks, or the grocery stores with large parking lots to accommodate shoppers who
drive. Moreover, choice over one's food and the option to reflect on the sustainability and
social justice implications of such a choice is a privilege that largely belongs to affluent con-
sumers. Consumer politics therefore offers limited transformative potential for impover-
ished citizens who struggle to meet even basic food needs and have comparatively limited
access to alternative markets.
Another set of questions raised at the more skeptical pole of the literature is the effi-
cacy of conventional mass-markets for food system transformation. Rather than just
ignore their critics, dominant market actors can quickly react and adapt to chang-
ing consumer values and countercultural movements (Frank 1997; Jaffe and Howard
2010; Turner 2006;), as evidenced by the introduction of new “sustainable” products
and organic foods into mainstream shopping spaces like WalMart. Yet, in the case of
organic food, this has not significantly moved the food system toward a state of sus-
tainability, even though a greater volume of certified organic products has been made
available through the corporatization and mass retailing of organics (“Big Organics”)
(Allen and Kovach 2000; Delind 2000; Guthman 2004). In the case of the seafood
industry, a retailer-driven sustainability program has produced a confusing patchwork
of sustainable and nonsustainable consumer options, with ambiguous outcomes for sus-
tainable fisheries more generally (Konefal 2010). Moreover, messages from alternative
agricultural initiatives (e.g., “eat local”) that challenge the structure of the food system
have proven to be easily incorporated into the marketing of corporate commodities
(Johnston, Biro, and MacKendrick 2009), raising questions about the scale of corporate
change required to achieve sustainability, and the extent to which consumers reflexively
engage with food choices (Crossley 2004; Johnston and Szabo 2011).