The moral economy of ready‐made food

The aim of this paper is to develop and apply a framework to explore how moralities of consumption are constituted in and through markets. Using the case of ready‐made foods, this paper argues moral economies are comprised through interactions between micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐level processes in the f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The British journal of sociology 2018-12, Vol.69 (4), p.1271-1292
Main Author: Wheeler, Kathryn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Consumer behavior
Consumers
Consumption
Cooking
Discourses
Employment
Ethics
Femininity
Food
Food processing industry
Individual responsibility
Innovations
Markets
Mass media
Moral economy
Morality
NGOs
Nongovernmental organizations
ready‐meals
Responsibility
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Summary:The aim of this paper is to develop and apply a framework to explore how moralities of consumption are constituted in and through markets. Using the case of ready‐made foods, this paper argues moral economies are comprised through interactions between micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐level processes in the form of instituted systems of provision, state regulation, collective food customs promoted though media, NGOs and lifestyle practitioners, and the everyday reflections of consumers. Building on a theoretical framework developed to understand the moral economy of work and employment (Bolton and Laaser 2013), this paper explores how markets for ready‐made food are incessantly negotiated in the context of moral ideas about cooking, femininity and individual responsibility. It focuses on ‘new’ market innovations of fresh ready‐to‐cook meal solutions and explores how these products are both a response to moralizing discourses about cooking ‘properly’, as well as an intervention into the market that offers opportunities for new moral identities to be performed. Using data gathered from interviews with food manufacturers and consumers, I advocate for a multi‐layered perspective that captures the dynamic interplay between consumers, markets and moralities of consumption.
ISSN:0007-1315
1468-4446
DOI:10.1111/1468-4446.12333