Agriculture Reference
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Finally, at the margins of the debate about consumers and social change are two often
overlooked variations of consumer politics that we wish to integrate into our discussion
of food politics: voluntary simplicity (Elgin 1991; Etzioni 1998) and ecological citizen-
ship (Dobson 2003; Wolf, Brown, and Conway 2009). In contrast to forms of consumer
politics that focus on sourcing alternative commodities, these two approaches have a
broader and more ambitious target: addressing consumerism and materialism as factors
that discourage a sense of personal responsibility to the collective good and ecologi-
cal commons. Voluntary simplicity results from dissatisfaction with mass consumption
(Zavestoski 2002), and emphasizes noncommodity forms of meaning and fulfillment
(Craig-Lees and Hill 2002; Etzioni 1998; Lorenzen 2012 Schor 1998). It involves demand-
ing less consumption overall, rather than simply shifting consumption to a more sus-
tainable basket of commodities (Shaw and Newholm 2002). Ecological citizenship
confronts consumer culture in a similar way, but encapsulates a range of politicized
lifestyle decisions and practices, including sustainable shopping, but also energy reduc-
tion in the home or the decision to use public transit over a personal vehicle. This form
of consumer politics values justice, care, and compassion, and it emphasizes the citi-
zen's responsibility to reduce one's environmental impact in both the public and private
spheres (Dobson 2003; Seyfang 2005). So far, ecological citizenship has remained pri-
marily a theoretical and normative concept (Dobson 2003), with only a few empirical
studies of its application in everyday life (e.g., Kriflik 2006; Seyfang 2005; Wolf et al.
2009). Later in this chapter we identify the perspective of ecological citizenship as criti-
cal to the transformative potential of food politics (see also Seyfang 2005; 2009).
A Typology of Food Politics
As is clear from the previous discussion, we hope to avoid binary discussions of con-
sumer politics, and join with others who view the discourse according to a typology
reflecting a range of motivations—from the desire to save money through sustainable
purchases or promote personal healthfulness, to the desire to reform social infrastruc-
ture in a way that transcends one's individual consumer desires (Seyfang 2009; Kriflik
2006). Applied to food politics, this approach recognizes that consumer motivations are
complex, polysemic, and often competing (Holt 1997; Schudson 2007). Moral impera-
tives related to the environment and social justice can be crowded out by other consid-
erations, such as thrift, convenience, and the desire to cultivate identity and a sense of
belonging within one's social group (Seyfang 2009 15; Johnston and Szabo 2011; Johnston
and Baumann 2010, 168-169).
Over the course of five separate research projects, involving interviews with over one
hundred people, we have had the opportunity to examine the meanings that a diverse
cross-section of consumers attach to their food choices (e.g., Johnston and Baumann
2010; Johnston and Szabo 2011). Looking at these interview data together, we are struck
by the complex and polysemic nature of food politics, a realm where consumption is
 
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