The Nature of Food Localisms Among Consumers in Ireland: Defensive Localisms, Sustainability and Reflexivity
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Provided by the author(s) and NUI Galway in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Title The nature of food localisms among consumers in Ireland: defensive localisms, sustainability and reflexivity Author(s) Carroll, Brídín Publication Date 2013-09-30 Item record http://hdl.handle.net/10379/5012 Downloaded 2021-09-24T17:08:11Z Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. The Nature of Food Localisms Among Consumers in Ireland: defensive localisms, sustainability and reflexivity Brídín Carroll A thesis supervised by Dr. Frances Fahy and submitted to the Discipline of Geography, School of Geography and Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. September 2013 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is entirely my own work and has not previously been submitted in whole or in part as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university. Signed: Date: 30/09/13 i ii Abstract Food is arguably the best example of the interaction between nature and society, fitting squarely in the jurisdiction of human geography topics which include sustainability, consumption, political economy, culture, nationalism, agriculture, communities, commodities and globalisation. The globalisation and industrialisation of the prevailing agri-food system have caused negative effects on human health, the environment and developing world communities and livelihoods. Partly in reaction to this, the positive value of local food, over industrial ‘placeless’ food, has been recognised and is seen as offering something alternative: an environmentally friendly system of production with fewer food miles and (often assumed) less industrialised production; a necessarily safe and equitable labour environment due to the opaqueness of the food chain; stability of income and livelihoods for producers and their families and consequent community resilience; and traceable food which comes embedded with information about the place and manner of the food’s production. As a result, there has been a drive recently towards reducing the distance between consumers and the origins of their food, spurred by consumer demand and bolstered by promotions of local food originating from the realm of production. In recent years, food system localisation has become an area of importance for national governments, industry, policy-makers and local communities. Although past studies have critically engaged with some of the issues surrounding a transition towards localised food systems, research to date has largely ignored the conflation of local and sustainable (by consumers, amongst others) in alternative food systems, preferring to focus instead on quantitative measuring of how consumers view local food. Discourses of scale, which formed the basis of this examination, argue that as scale is a social construct, it cannot be said that there is anything inherent about the local. By extension, to believe that local food is good, just or sustainable amounts to spatial valorisation. The mistaken conflation of local with a number of positive characteristics, including sustainability, obscures the hand which local food systems can have in perpetuating undemocratic ideals and practices. Using Galway and Dublin as two case study locations and utilising a theoretically-informed, multi-phase mixed methodology, this study aimed to analyse how consumers in Ireland understand, perceive, value and prioritise local and sustainable food. iii Drawing on empirical data obtained from interviews, focus groups and surveys with over 1000 participants, the study found that the majority of respondents were motivated in their local food purchasing by defensive rather than by reflexive processes. Participants in this study appeared uncomfortable with the term ‘sustainable food’. By contrast they were confident in the meaning of ‘local food’ and largely defined it according to limits of spatial proximity. Participants attributed a number of positive traits to local food, sustainability among them, and this led to the prioritising of the issue of local provenance when choosing food. However, in spite of the importance of local provenance, the results from this study indicate that it was not the most important issue for participants; instead, pragmatic considerations such as affordability most often prevailed. Nonetheless, participants’ motivations appeared to be driven by defensive localisms and personal beliefs in the value of helping ‘our own’, rather than by reflexive values of environmental protection and support for democratic principles of social equity. These results have implications for food system transformation away from its current unsustainable state to one which involves alternative modes of production and networks of provisioning. The results of this study represent new and significant contributions to academic knowledge in a number of areas. It is the first of its kind to qualitatively examine the understandings of consumers in Ireland towards local and sustainable food. A key outcome is the creation of a new framework of localist typologies which is theoretically and empirically informed. This framework is the first of its kind in that it applies the esoteric concept of reflexivity to the views and values of consumers in the hopes of advancing discourses of food localisms in new and fruitful directions. iv Acknowledgements I would first like to sincerely thank my supervisor Dr. Frances Fahy. She has consistently offered support and guidance from proposal phase through to the completion of this thesis. Providing invaluable advice, access and encouragement, she is a model of what a good supervisor should be. Many thanks are also extended to my committee members, Prof. Leslie Duram of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and Prof. Ulf Stromayer of the School of Geography & Archaeology for their feedback and helpful suggestions throughout the course of this research. I am also thankful to the many staff both at NUI Galway and elsewhere who have provided feedback on my research. Thanks are also due to Dr. Siubhan Comer and Nessa Golden for their help with the final stages of this thesis. The empirical element of this research would not have been possible without the support of the National University of Ireland, Galway’s Millennium fund, and for this I am grateful. I am also grateful to Prof. Anna Davies, Dr. Frances Fahy and Dr. Henrike Rau for allowing me to contribute to and draw from their Consensus project which was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STRIVE Programme 2007-2013. Special thanks go to Mary Jo Lavelle for being so gracious in my use of data which she worked so long and hard to gather. I would like to thank all of my research participants for their time in taking part and for their insights and comments which were invaluable in the completion of this thesis. To my geography friends and colleagues, especially those who have taken the PhD journey with me, thank you for the breaks, the office chats, the late night facebook messages and the (too) rare nights out. Doing this would have been a lot more difficult, if not impossible, without you all. To my other friends, I’m eternally grateful for your efforts to understand and appear interested when I explained my thesis! I am also grateful that you haven’t discarded me as a friend over the past four years due to my absence from many dinners, nights out v and weekends away. Finally, thank you for lending empathetic ears when thesis times were tough. Gratitude is extended to my family for the support they have provided. Special thanks go to my sister Síobhan who has understood that my absence during her first pregnancy has been due to the fact that I have been gestating this thesis. To Colin, thanks are due for his calming influence and his humour. His support and love have sustained me throughout this process. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to my parents, Joe and Joan, who instilled in me the importance of hard work and determination, without which no thesis can be completed. I am grateful for their good examples of geniality and a love and respect for knowledge and enquiry. For their support and their belief in me, I will be eternally grateful. vi Table of Contents Declaration ........................................................................................................................... i Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. v Table of Contents..............................................................................................................vii Table of Figures ................................................................................................................... x Table of Tables .................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Overview ................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Context ..................................................................................................................... 2 1.2.1