The Politics of Grocery Shopping - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 653

Even when an eco-shopping perspective was the dominant theme articulated in an
interview, contradictions between beliefs, values and behaviors often surfaced. While
the eco-shopping perspective does present political food shopping as “win-win,” vari-
ous interviewees described how they saw personal and political goals as contradictory,
and they recounted how they sometimes had to sacrifice their politics while shopping.
Audrey, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mother of two children, listed multiple environ-
mental and social justice concerns that cross her mind when shopping for food, and
motivate her to occasionally select organic and local foods from a farmers' market.
However, she noted that most of the time she feels unable to resolve the contradiction
between her beliefs and actions, and ultimately finds it necessary to prioritize her con-
sumer interests:
When I'm [shopping] I'm looking at the labels and ask, “Is it organic or not?” “What
country did it come from? “Is this food that is seasonal or isn't it?” Although, you
know, more often than not if I really feel that we need something or want something,
I go ahead and get it anyway. So regardless of where it's coming from. . . . And lately
I've been looking at the 100-mile diet. . . . That's really interesting. It's yet another
thing that would be really interesting to try but I really can't commit myself to.
Ecological Citizenship
An ecological citizenship perspective, as exemplified by quotes from Phillippe above, is
comparatively more skeptical of consumption as a positive force for sustainability, and
involves distancing oneself from the identities and lifestyles associated with consumer-
ism. This perspective, not surprisingly, was the least commonly articulated perspective
in our interviews with political consumers, and we can imagine this being a relatively
minor perspective in the general population. When it was articulated in our interviews,
this perspective focused less on the “right” things to buy, and more on the need to “give
things up,” reduce consumption, or redesign one's lifestyle to be more sustainable. As
Jackie, a 25-year-old working in retail and sales, explained, “I think every choice I make
is political. Not shopping is political. Not consuming is a huge and important act in and
of itself.” Karen, a 33-year-old freelance writer, described this same imperative as a sac-
rifice and illustrated this with an example of her experience trying to find crackers not
packaged in plastic:
It's funny, because somehow choosing one product over another may be a choice
based on environmental reasons, but if you boycotted the product entirely then that
would seem like more of a political act somehow . . . maybe it's because [there's] a sac-
rifice involved in making the decision. If you love crackers and you never, ever eat
crackers [because of the plastic packaging] then somehow that's more of a personal
sacrifice than just choosing [organic] whole-wheat crackers.
An ecological citizenship perspective also focuses on the importance of self-sufficiency,
producing one's own food, locating local producers to shorten the commodity chain and
make it more transparent, and avoiding large corporate food actors where transparency