Tag: food consumption

The Caring City: Sustainable Communities of Care in Glasgow

Drawing on new approaches to thinking about care as complex, other and self-regarding behaviours, which is partially socially constructed, this research project explores the interrelationships between sustainability, health and quality of life. Care about and for ourselves as individuals, and for our wider communities embodies issues of sustainability, health and quality of life. The research investigates these issues by actively engaging with groups involved in promoting local food production and consumption in Glasgow. The project is funded by the University of Glasgow’s Knowledge Exchange Fund and is concerned with developing new resources about local food projects in partnership with existing local groups.

The term ‘urban agriculture’ (UA) is one we might not associate with an old industrial city like Glasgow but like other old industrial cities in the UK, a discourse of UA is finding its way into local government policy initiatives. For example, during the first week of our research we attended a conference organised by Glasgow City Council (GCC) in partnership with the Soil Association Scotland entitled ‘Glasgow, Sustainable Food City’. This involved a series of talks and discussions geared towards implementing a sustainable food strategy for Glasgow. The event elicited a range of ideas: “more school gardens”, “a much better map of available and potential growing land”, “a vibrant street food culture” and much more.

While the event noted above marks an important juncture in the City Council’s approach to UA, of crucial concern to our research is an already existing network of grassroots community food initiatives in the city. In the same week as the GCC event, we attended a meeting held by the Glasgow Local Food Network (GLFN). The GLFN is an informal network of community organisations and individuals from across the city “that are passionate about local food and strive to produce more of what we eat and eat more of what we produce” (http://glasgowlocalfood.blogspot.co.uk/). The passion and commitment of local growers across much of Europe, like the GLFN, has helped push UA up the policy agenda. Similarly, for a sustainable food strategy policy to be effective, it must value and utilize the wealth of knowledge being cultivated at the ground level.

Community gardens: an alternative to global food production and consumption
Community gardens: an alternative to global food production and consumption

The value of grassroots community food initiatives and UA more generally is quantifiable. For example, we can measure: a decrease in food miles that comes with local food production and consumption; the acreage of unproductive urban space revitalized through a variety urban agricultural practices, and the volume of materials recycled in such practices (e.g. timber for raised beds; food waste for compost; water capture and storage). Other potential values of UA are less easily quantified but no less important for people committed to creating sustainable communities of care in our city. These relate to, amongst other things, awareness of environmental and human health, community cohesion and resilience and the co-production and sharing of knowledge and skills. It should also be noted that modern urban agricultural practices are, for some, deeply embedded in issues of political struggle. Many UA practitioners understand their work as part of an ongoing struggle to de-commodify urban spaces and secure an urban commons for future generations.

Our project began in earnest three weeks ago and in that short time we have encountered all of the issues raised above and more. With a clear methodology beginning to develop, the next five months should be an exciting time for all involved.

John Crossan

John is a researcher at the University of Glasgow in the Adam Smith Business School working with Professors Deirdre Shaw, Andy Cumbers and Robert McMaster on the Caring City project.

To find more about local food communities in Glasgow, visit:

Gendered identity negotiations through food consumption

I am absolutely delighted to present this research on Thursday 20th March 2014 at 9.30am in the Department of Marketing, University of Glasgow and as a preface to the seminar I hope a little back story might be interesting, hence this blog post.

Let’s start from a pedagogical experience, the kernel of this research came from undergraduate student work in the Department of Marketing, University of Otago, New Zealand. The film that is part of this published research was developed from an earlier version that was submitted as a visual media presentation of a consumption experience analysis for a 300 level Consumer Culture paper. We started encouraging students to work in visual media (most commonly videography) as a mean of representing knowledge and creating insight.

Our experience reinforces current research in this area, not only can videographic research be a powerful alternative to the dominant textual form but it effectively records bodily representations and presence in contextual space; emotional, resonant and attention grabbing expressions; more “real” and “authentic” representations and ability to capture context-rich and multi-sensory environments. We also found that our students are more intuitively eloquent in the visual than the textual form. Our experience finds that our undergraduate students are able to express subtlety and tension in consumption experience analysis that often eludes them when seeking to express the same insights in a textual form. The range of topics addressed visually have been ‘eclectic’ from Ken and Barbie discussing gendered stereotypes at play in alcohol advertising to ‘trolleyology’ (a visual exploration of the supermarket environment) to crossing the gender divide (comparing media representation of androgyny with consumers lived experiences) to using self-reflexive video diaries to illustrate consumption practices used to recreate a sense of home for international students.

Ken & Barbie gender stereotypes?
Ken & Barbie gender stereotypes?

The common element to all of these topics is the insight added through the use of a visual aspect which so often challenges verbal or textual representations. For example in the accompanying film linked to the published article, we ask our male household to consume a meal commonly consumed by the female household and vice versa, the film illustrates clearly the tension, discomfort and distaste that accompanies this experience far more eloquently than the actual words uttered (click link below).

Video on Gendered Consumption of Food

Shelagh Ferguson

MaRVL Visiting Scholar, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Otago, NZ

Further readings:

  • Belk, R. W., & Kozinets, R. V. (2005). Videography in marketing and consumer research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 8, 128–141.
  • De Valck, K., Rokka, J., & Hietanen, J. (2009). Videography in consumer research: Visions for a method on the rise. Finanza Marketing e Produzione, 27, 81–100.
  • Pink, S. (2007). Doing visual ethnography. London: Sage.
  • Pink, S. (2009). Doing sensory ethnography. London: Sage.
  • Spanjaard, D., & Freeman, L. (2007). Tread softly: Using videography to capture shopping behaviour. In M. Craig-Lees, T. Davis, & G. Gregory (Eds.), Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research, 7. (pp. 26–29) Sydney: Association for Consumer Research.
  • Schembri, & Boyle (2013). Visual ethnography: Achieving rigorous and authentic 388 interpretations. Journal of Business Research, 66, 1251–1254.
  • Turner, K., Ferguson, S., Craig, J., Jeffries, A., & Beaton, S. (2013) Gendered identity negotiations through food consumption. Young Consumers 14(3), 280-288