ABSTRACT
The Strength2Food project, which we had the good fortune to coordinate, addressed how European consumers perceive, value, trust, and utilise EU, national, and regional food quality labels. Through pan-European ethnographic research coordinated by the Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) team at OsloMet, the project indirectly tackled, however, a much more ambitious goal – to understand how households negotiate sustainability challenges in their everyday food practices. At first glance, the subject matter may appear dull (i.e., households’ food planning, purchasing, cooking, eating, and disposing). Yet, the work illuminates precisely because these mundane practices are usually overlooked and forgotten in policy and academic debates on sustainability. The disconnect between academic and policy discourses and how sustainability challenges are lived, experienced, and brought to life within households is, as demonstrated in this book, a structural critique that inhibits critical reflection, dialogue, and collective behaviour change.
