Consumption Challenged

Bente Halkier is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark

• Contents: Preface; A field of challenged consumption; Analysing challenged consumption from a practice theoretical perspective; Dealing with environmental challenges; Dealing with food risk challenges; Dealing with challenges of cooking from scratch; Dealing with nutritional challenges; Concluding consumption challenged; References; Index.

This is a pioneering contribution to an important, largely neglected topic in consumption studies: media campaigns and debates which increasingly rely on the agency of ordinary consumers to solve serious social problems. Halkier’s empirical cases of food consumption reflect major modern concerns about the health of the human body and soul and its relation to the external world. Jukka Gronow, Uppsala University, Sweden 'Consumption is not only everyday routine - it is also a challenge. Consumer choices involve moral dilemmas and contradictions between utility, comfort and responsibility towards others and the environment. Consumers engage in political acts, sometimes consciously but often taking no explicit stand. This is an erudite treatment of theoretical issues involved in understanding consumer behavior, and gives firm empirical evidence on its revealing conclusions.' Pekka Sulkunen, University of Helsinki, Finland 'The book is both empirically and theoretically important, encouraging us to think past more individualised and rationalistic notions of challenging consumption and to set these behaviours in a social context - highly relevant to a consideration of individual versus public responsibilities.' Food Ethics