Paper short abstract:

My paper discusses food waste reduction as a process reconstructing and reconstituting the traditional and deep-rooted norm of not wasting food. While the reconstruction process involves braking some contradicting norms, traditions, and practices others seem unattainable.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, food waste and food loss have been raised up as threatening global environment and food safety. Food waste reduction has become a political goal and a cultural quest shared by various actors. Food waste reduction implies several elements of norm braking, bending and construction, which I will discuss based on my study on Finnish media discourse and consumer participation in food waste reduction.

The recent discourse brought into the daylight the continuous braking of the deep-rooted traditional norm of not wasting food. My paper discusses food waste reduction as a process reconstructing and reconstituting this traditional norm. On one hand, food waste reduction appears as part of a wider transformation required in (food) production and consumption. On the other hand, its typical focus on individual behavior may also mask the need for a more profound change and braking of norms and traditions.

In the everyday lives of citizens, food waste reduction plays out as resistance to “consumer culture”. Resistance, however, does not easily turn into the transformation of alleged social and economic drivers of over-consumption as this kind of change is often regarded implausible and outside the reach of ordinary citizens. Nevertheless, taking on responsibility as consumers — thus performing the reconstitution of the sociocultural norm of not wasting food — entails hopes for wider cultural and systemic change, such as loosening the norms dictated by market economy.