The Politics of Grocery Shopping - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 650

than solely individual—goals, such as environmental improvement, equality, and social
justice. Consumer perspectives falling closer to the political end of the spectrum, there-
fore, more consciously weigh political goals with purchasing decisions. Here we draw on
much of the consumer politics literature described above, which suggests that political
consumers are more likely to attribute political motivations to consumption activities.
Perspectives that fall closer to the apolitical category are weighted more heavily toward
individually scaled considerations (e.g., health, pleasure), and do not significantly
incorporate collective goals into purchasing decisions. As such, a consumer account
describing the purchase of organic beef exclusively in terms of personal health benefits
would be categorized as more “apolitical” than an account focused on how that same
purchase contributed to food system sustainability.
The second, vertical dimension of the typology captures a range of meanings
attached to the procurement of desired commodities, including food. For perspectives
that fall closer to the consumerism end of the spectrum, the continual procurement
of new and novel goods is a principal goal, and other, collective good considerations
are secondary. Here consumption primarily takes on meanings already well examined
within the sociological literature on consumption, including the desire to maximize
pleasure and consumer choice, obtain value for money, achieve status, and mark one's
location within a social group (Bourdieu 1984; Giddens 1991; Johnston 2008, 247-
248). Consumer perspectives falling closer to the sacrifice/simplicity end have more
in common with the voluntary simplicity perspective described earlier in the chapter;
consumption itself is problematized and questioned, and there are deliberate efforts
to forgo desired goods owing to a conscious desire to reduce consumption altogether.
These sacrifices are not necessarily seen as hardships, but rather can be conceptual-
ized positively by connecting reduced consumption with increased life satisfaction
(Soper 2004).
The left-hand side of the quadrant is relatively apolitical, by which we mean that con-
sumer politics, especially food choices, are not significantly framed as a way to amelio-
rate social and ecological problems in the food system, or to address power and resource
inequities. Food choices and diets for both “frugal consumption” and “mass consump-
tion” are not deliberately directed to reflect political objectives; instead, other priori-
ties dominate. With frugal consumption, consumers seek to minimize consumption to
minimize expenditures, and there is a relative disinterest in—perhaps even antipathy
toward—accumulating new goods. Importantly, frugality is not always related to income
constraints. Consumers that exemplified frugal consumption in our research were often
from dual-income, middle-class, and upper-middle-class households. One example is
Linda, a married, middle-class, 35-year-old teacher and mother of an infant. Linda does
not enjoy cooking but is learning to prepare meals now that she is at home caring for her
daughter. When asked about the most important priorities affecting her food choices,
she explained that “price is a big concern. . . . And probably size . . . we buy in bulk a lot.”
Although Linda articulated concerns about pollution from pesticides at other points in
her interview, she does not frame her shopping choices as politically motivated. Rather,
maintaining a balanced food budget is the dominant priority: “Realistically I can't afford