From value to values: sustainable consumption at farmers markets |
| |
Authors: | Alison Hope Alkon |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Sociology, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Advocates of environmental sustainability and social justice increasingly pursue their goals through the promotion of so-called
“green” products such as locally grown organic produce. While many scholars support this strategy, others criticize it harshly,
arguing that environmental degradation and social injustice are inherent results of capitalism and that positive social change
must be achieved through collective action. This study draws upon 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork at two farmers markets
located in demographically different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area to examine how market managers, vendors, and regular
customers negotiate tensions between their economic strategies and environmental sustainability and social justice goals.
Managers, vendors, and customers emphasize the ethical rather than financial motivations of their markets through comparisons
to capitalist, industrial agriculture and through attention to perceived economic sacrifices made by market vendors. They
also portray economic strategies as a pragmatic choice, pointing to failed efforts to achieve justice and sustainability through
policy change as well as difficulties funding and sustaining non-profit organizations. While market managers, vendors, and
customers deny any difficulties pursuing justice and sustainability through local economics, the need for vendors to sustain
their livelihoods does sometimes interfere with their social justice goals. This has consequences for the function of each
market.
Alison Hope Alkon
is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Her research examines how efforts
to create environmental protection and social justice operate in a market context. |
| |
Keywords: | Economic embeddedness Farmers markets Food Race Social justice Sustainable consumption |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|