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Annual meat consumption per capita, China and Vietnam, 1961-2013. Source: Compiled by authors based on numbers from FAOSTAT.
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The rapidly escalating production and consumption of meat across the world has drawn much attention in recent years. While mainstream accounts tend to see the phenomenon as driven by ‘natural’ processes of consumption pattern change through economic development, critical geographies have turned to exploring the uneven capitalist processes underpinn...
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... China and Vietnam still eat considerably less meat per person than most affluent countries 4 , both countries have seen very rapid increase in meat consumption the past few decades. Figure 5 shows the meat booms in China and Vietnam compared to global and Asian averages. Studying the meatification of food provision and practice in Vietnam, Hansen (2018) has shown how the massive increases in meat production and imports have been central to this boom, but argues that these supply-side factors fail to tell us why Vietnamese eat so much more meat. ...
Citations
... The historical relationship between rising average incomes and increased animal livestock product consumption, particularly pronounced in rapidly growing economies, was assumed to hold for future years. It is not our intention to question this assumption at this juncture, though it is worth noting that dietary norms are historically constituted [18], culturally contingent [19], influenced by agrifood global business value chains [20] and matters for health as well as environmental intervention [21,22]. These debates apart, the aim was to determine how this assumed demand for livestock products could be met at least cost in terms of EID risks. ...
The emergence of zoonotic infections that can develop into pathogens of pandemic potential is a major concern for public health. The risks of emergence and transmission relate to multiple factors that range from land use to human–non-human animal contacts. Livestock agriculture plays a potentially significant role in those risks, shaping landscapes and providing hosts that can act as the source or amplifiers of emergent pathogens. The relative risks will be contingent upon the nature of those systems, with comparisons often made between intensive, indoor, biosecure systems and more extensive, outdoor, insecure systems. Microbiological, ecological and veterinary sciences provide useful entry points in specifying and modelling some of the relative risks. Yet, they often do so with little regard for social science inputs and by making assumptions about social and economic conditions. In this article, we respond to recent analyses of relative risks by raising the importance of social and economic drivers of risk. We chart social science insights and research that materially alter the zoonotic risks associated with livestock production. Our purpose is to emphasize the requirement for full appreciation of the social, economic and political components of zoonotic and pandemic risk.
... The theoretical point of departure for this article is food as practice, focusing on mundane, shared, and routinized types of behavior, rather than the choices of individual consumers or food as a cultural marker (Warde 2016). In particular, the article draws on theorizing on the relationship between built infrastructure and everyday food practices (see Hansen and Jakobsen 2020). It combines a practice approach with the geographical concept of foodscapes to illuminate the "processes, politics, spaces, and places . . . ...
... I understand these relations as enabled by industrialized animal slaughter and a labor regime produced through compressed capitalist transformations (D'Costa 2014). While the former has been explored more in detail elsewhere (see Hansen 2018Hansen , 2021aHansen and Jakobsen 2020), the latter perhaps warrants more explanation. ...
Vietnam's embrace of the Leninist-capitalist hybrid known as the socialist market economy has led to a number of food transformations. These include increasing food imports, heavy investment by powerful domestic and foreign actors in food production and retailing, and the scaling up of domestic agriculture, as well as a range of problematic dietary changes. In an urban food scene that is tremendously rich in the number and diversity of its food spaces, the prevalence of eating out has increased dramatically. Related to affordability, convenience, time, consumer culture, and the search for the good life, eating out has become embedded in everyday life in late-socialist Hanoi. Ongoing food transformations are seeing many of these food practices move from the streets to air-conditioned restaurants. Based on eating ethnography, this article analyzes the boom in eating out in contemporary Hanoi. Studying the interplay among social practices, urban foodscapes, and political economy, and focusing on the middle-class good life and the structural conditions underpinning it, the article analyzes the visible and invisible geographies of food. The latter includes the increasing dominance of capitalist actors in late-socialist foodscapes as cheap food is enabled by intensified animal slaughter and the deep structural inequalities produced by Vietnam's compressed capitalism.
... Meatification is a complex phenomenon. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have identified how meat is deeply embedded in food cultures (Potts, 2016;Chatterjee and Subramaniam, 2021;Hansen and Syse, 2021;Volden and Wethal, 2021;Bjørkdahl and Syse, 2022), and bounded by the political economy of capitalist food provision (Weis, 2013;Neo and Emel, 2017;Hansen, 2018;Winders and Ransom, 2019;Blanchette, 2020;Hansen and Jakobsen, 2020). Meatification is driven by both changes in everyday consumption patterns and the industrialisation of agriculture, including profound changes to how humans relate to animals -ie. ...
... Meatification is a complex phenomenon. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have identified how meat is deeply embedded in food cultures (Potts, 2016;Chatterjee and Subramaniam, 2021;Hansen and Syse, 2021;Volden and Wethal, 2021;Bjørkdahl and Syse, 2022), and bounded by the political economy of capitalist food provision (Weis, 2013;Neo and Emel, 2017;Hansen, 2018;Winders and Ransom, 2019;Blanchette, 2020;Hansen and Jakobsen, 2020). Meatification is driven by both changes in everyday consumption patterns and the industrialisation of agriculture, including profound changes to how humans relate to animals -ie. ...
... The experiences of meat reducers, often conceptualised as flexitarians, 2 have gradually attracted more attention in the literature (Verain et al, 2015;Mylan, 2018;Dagevos, 2021;Kanerva, 2021), alongside considerable attention given to the cultures, practices and histories of veg(etari)anism in recent years (see Spencer, 2016;Twine, 2018). A rich body of research has untangled a complex web of factors that contribute to meat consumption, reduction and avoidance, including attitudes and norms (Verain et al, 2022), ideologies and discourses (Kanerva, 2021), gendered expectations (Kildal and Syse, 2017), food cultures (Volden and Wethal, 2021), social interaction and social occasions (Veen et al, 2023;Wendler, 2023), foodscapes and consumption environments (Bacon and Krpan, 2018;Hansen and Jakobsen, 2020), and the broader political economy of food (Hansen, 2018). Despite this attention, there is, as argued by Halkier and Lund (2023: 1), 'not much consensus on the combinations of single factors into more comprehensive understandings of facilitators and barriers to meat reduction'. ...
Current meat consumption trends are associated with extensive resource use, environmental degradation, and detrimental effects on animal and human health, making meat reduction a core sustainability target. The experiences of meat reducers, often conceptualised as flexitarians, have gradually attracted more academic attention. This literature has shown that in many cases meat reducers do not radically reduce their meat intake and have untangled a complex web of factors contributing to meat consumption, reduction and avoidance. This article contributes to a nuanced understanding of the experiences, approaches and challenges faced by meat reducers. The data was collected through in-depth interviews with 26 self-declared meat reducers in Norway. By framing consumption as embedded in social practices, this article highlights how broader cultural, social and material conditions structure eating and hence meat consumption. A central finding is that through processes of socialisation and habituation, performances of eating often conform to the prevailing conventions inscribed in the socio-material environment in which they are embedded. We thus question the popular depictions of individuals as efficient drivers of dietary changes and highlight the many factors involved in reproducing the ‘normalness’ of meat-intense diets, demonstrating how individual intentions, choices and habits are themselves rooted in, and circumscribed by, prevailing conventions, that is, practices.
... Even dedicated 'meat reducers' often struggle to cut back on consumption (Mylan, 2018). Meat consumption is deeply embedded in food cultures (Hansen & Syse, 2021) and food practices (Halkier & Lund, 2023), and fascilitated by increasingly meat intensive foodscapes (Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020). The 'meatification' of diets (Weis, 2013) has occurred alongside and through the increased production and consumption of convenience food 1 since the 1950s . ...
... restaurants and different social gatherings/eating events) co-shape the consumption of pølse, and the role of provisioning actors these. In our approach, foodscapes then represent the spatial and scalar intersection between the macro-geographies of food systems and everyday practices (see also Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020). Specifically, we are interested in the role of foodscapes in processes of 'conveniencization'. ...
Meat consumption and convenience food are both located at the heart of contemporary, industrialized, unhealthy and unsustainable food systems. In this article, we study the intersections between convenience food and 'meatification' of diets, focusing on the 'pølse'-an umbrella term including both hotdogs and a range of sausages-as the epitome of convenience food in Norway. We explore how the pølse is embedded in Norwegian food practices, and why it is considered convenient in different contexts. In doing so, we seek to explain how pølse eating is co-shaped by socio-material scripting processes that further entrench meat in food practices and complicate meat-reduction efforts. The analysis is based on 52 in-depth household interviews and autophotography in four geographical contexts in Norway, in addition to 22 park interviews and survey data centering on household food and meat practices. We use a theoretical apparatus combining social practice theory, foodscapes and socio-material scripts to analyse the conveniencization of pølse. The articles demonstrates how meat consumption and convenience food become entwined in specific social practices, and how conveniencization intersects with practices of care, notions of class, social expectations and normativity. Moreover, we show that despite the range of plant-based 'pølse' substitutes on offer, meat-eaters remain skeptical to its taste, and substitutes rather seem to offer a way into established social occasions for non-meat eaters than a way out of meat eating.
... Rather surprisingly given the profound impacts they are having and will have on global consumption patterns and resource use, these new consumers have been subject to relatively little attention in the by now large field of consumption research. This field has had a tendency to focus on affluent societies, a tendency strengthened during the 'practice turn' of the past couple of decades (although see Hansen, 2017aHansen & Jakobsen, 2020a;Sahakian et al., 2016). This is perhaps not surprising, but given the speed at which the emerging middle classes and their consumption levels are growing (see Kharas, 2017), it represents a significant lacuna in the literature. ...
... Such food transformations are quite obviously driven by much more than individual consumers making new choices, but also more than infrastructure and policy. They represent changes in the total system of how food is produced and consumed, from farms to the everyday geographies of consumption (Clapp, 2016;Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). While a practice approach offers a highly useful way for investigating the intersections between everyday geographies, infrastructure and changes in everyday life that such food transformations represent, it needs to be accompanied by a dynamic approach to political economy in order to provide a holistic account of changing consumption patterns (Hansen, 2022). ...
... It also changes how food is produced, provided and consumed. This does not necessarily imply a 'Westernisation' of diets, but globally it does imply a dramatic homogenisation in terms of contributing towards diets consisting of more animal source food, more fat and sugar and more highly processed food (Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). This is referred to as a Western diet in the nutrition literature (see Kearney, 2010;Popkin et al., 2012), but, I argue, should rather be seen as a capitalist diet (see Otero, 2018). ...
This open access book seeks to understand why we consume as we do, how consumption changes, and why we keep consuming more and more, despite the visible damage we are doing to the planet. The chapters cover both the stubbornness of unsustainable consumption patterns in affluent societies and the drivers of rapidly increasing consumption in emerging economies. They focus on consumption patterns with the largest environmental footprints, including energy, housing, and mobility and engage in sophisticated ways with the theoretical frontiers of the field of consumption research, in particular on the ‘practice turn’ that has come to dominate the field in recent decades. This book maps out what we know about consumption, questions what we take for granted, and points us in new directions for better understanding—and changing—unsustainable consumption patterns.
... Rather surprisingly given the profound impacts they are having and will have on global consumption patterns and resource use, these new consumers have been subject to relatively little attention in the by now large field of consumption research. This field has had a tendency to focus on affluent societies, a tendency strengthened during the 'practice turn' of the past couple of decades (although see Hansen, 2017aHansen & Jakobsen, 2020a;Sahakian et al., 2016). This is perhaps not surprising, but given the speed at which the emerging middle classes and their consumption levels are growing (see Kharas, 2017), it represents a significant lacuna in the literature. ...
... Such food transformations are quite obviously driven by much more than individual consumers making new choices, but also more than infrastructure and policy. They represent changes in the total system of how food is produced and consumed, from farms to the everyday geographies of consumption (Clapp, 2016;Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). While a practice approach offers a highly useful way for investigating the intersections between everyday geographies, infrastructure and changes in everyday life that such food transformations represent, it needs to be accompanied by a dynamic approach to political economy in order to provide a holistic account of changing consumption patterns (Hansen, 2022). ...
... It also changes how food is produced, provided and consumed. This does not necessarily imply a 'Westernisation' of diets, but globally it does imply a dramatic homogenisation in terms of contributing towards diets consisting of more animal source food, more fat and sugar and more highly processed food (Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). This is referred to as a Western diet in the nutrition literature (see Kearney, 2010;Popkin et al., 2012), but, I argue, should rather be seen as a capitalist diet (see Otero, 2018). ...
Solar water heating, working correctly, can slash fossil fuel use in households. These systems have been popular in some countries for decades. But even in places environmentally well-suited to solar water heating, the technology is not necessarily widely used. Despite favourable weather, its early embrace of rooftop photovoltaics, and a generous decade-long incentive program, solar water heating is uncommon in California households. While there are many possible explanations, there has been little fieldwork on who uses solar water heating, the experiences of those who do, and how they relate to these conventional explanations. This chapter presents a picture of what we learned by talking to California households who use solar water heating systems, and relates these findings to policies and strategies for achieving low-carbon futures. The interviews were an unusual ethnographic element of a larger research project that sought to provide a broad view of the socio-technical landscape of solar water heating in California. We also discuss the role of these interviews in that project and the challenges of producing an integrated socio-technical analysis that can satisfactorily inform technology-centred solutions to problems seen by policy.
... Rather surprisingly given the profound impacts they are having and will have on global consumption patterns and resource use, these new consumers have been subject to relatively little attention in the by now large field of consumption research. This field has had a tendency to focus on affluent societies, a tendency strengthened during the 'practice turn' of the past couple of decades (although see Hansen, 2017aHansen & Jakobsen, 2020a;Sahakian et al., 2016). This is perhaps not surprising, but given the speed at which the emerging middle classes and their consumption levels are growing (see Kharas, 2017), it represents a significant lacuna in the literature. ...
... Such food transformations are quite obviously driven by much more than individual consumers making new choices, but also more than infrastructure and policy. They represent changes in the total system of how food is produced and consumed, from farms to the everyday geographies of consumption (Clapp, 2016;Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). While a practice approach offers a highly useful way for investigating the intersections between everyday geographies, infrastructure and changes in everyday life that such food transformations represent, it needs to be accompanied by a dynamic approach to political economy in order to provide a holistic account of changing consumption patterns (Hansen, 2022). ...
... It also changes how food is produced, provided and consumed. This does not necessarily imply a 'Westernisation' of diets, but globally it does imply a dramatic homogenisation in terms of contributing towards diets consisting of more animal source food, more fat and sugar and more highly processed food (Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). This is referred to as a Western diet in the nutrition literature (see Kearney, 2010;Popkin et al., 2012), but, I argue, should rather be seen as a capitalist diet (see Otero, 2018). ...
Flying has become an increasingly contested form of consumption, but ‘green’ consumers often continue to fly. This chapter provides novel insights into the stubbornness of air-travel by specifically studying the obstacles that environmentally conscious consumers face when trying to limit or eliminate aeromobility. Through in-depth interviews with Norwegian environmental organisation workers—conceptualised as particularly self-reflexive when it comes to environmentally contested forms of consumption—we analyse how environmentalists negotiate one of the most environmentally destructive aspects of their consumption patterns. To explore how the social embeddedness of flying complicates the reduction of air-travel in these accounts, we draw on a combination of mobilities and social practice approaches. The participants considered flying to be problematic, but also often necessary in specific practices. Various expectations related to convenience, time, and sociality, led to a certain ‘lock-in’ of (aero)mobility. Zooming out to consider broader practice geographies, we argue that aeromobility contributes to the tempo-spatial expansion of many practices, changing their contents, meanings, and the contexts in which they unfold. To achieve sustainable mobility, we suggest that attention must be shifted from the air-travels of individual consumers to the broader practices in which aeromobility is embedded.
... Rather surprisingly given the profound impacts they are having and will have on global consumption patterns and resource use, these new consumers have been subject to relatively little attention in the by now large field of consumption research. This field has had a tendency to focus on affluent societies, a tendency strengthened during the 'practice turn' of the past couple of decades (although see Hansen, 2017aHansen & Jakobsen, 2020a;Sahakian et al., 2016). This is perhaps not surprising, but given the speed at which the emerging middle classes and their consumption levels are growing (see Kharas, 2017), it represents a significant lacuna in the literature. ...
... Such food transformations are quite obviously driven by much more than individual consumers making new choices, but also more than infrastructure and policy. They represent changes in the total system of how food is produced and consumed, from farms to the everyday geographies of consumption (Clapp, 2016;Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). While a practice approach offers a highly useful way for investigating the intersections between everyday geographies, infrastructure and changes in everyday life that such food transformations represent, it needs to be accompanied by a dynamic approach to political economy in order to provide a holistic account of changing consumption patterns (Hansen, 2022). ...
... It also changes how food is produced, provided and consumed. This does not necessarily imply a 'Westernisation' of diets, but globally it does imply a dramatic homogenisation in terms of contributing towards diets consisting of more animal source food, more fat and sugar and more highly processed food (Hansen & Jakobsen, 2020a). This is referred to as a Western diet in the nutrition literature (see Kearney, 2010;Popkin et al., 2012), but, I argue, should rather be seen as a capitalist diet (see Otero, 2018). ...
This chapter assesses the contribution that economics can make to help us understand consumer behaviour and, if necessary, to try and change it. Economic theory of consumer behaviour is sophisticated and rigorous, but very limited. It excludes from consideration many of the factors which are well-recognised by other social sciences as being important. These limitations stem largely from the standard model of homo economicus . Economists are not unaware of this problem, but it is difficult to resolve it: to establish models that are tractable—for example incorporating the idea of interdependent preferences. But even simple economic theory, in which income and price are the main explanatory factors of consumer behaviour, provides the basis for potentially very effective policy instruments. If incomes fall, consumption is indeed reduced; and taxes and subsidies can substantially alter consumer behaviour. The problem is that such instruments are politically very unpopular.