Eating to become ‘good’ citizens: exploring the visceral biopolitics of eating in Singapore

This paper develops a more-than-representational approach to consumer agency in food biopolitics that is sensitive to people’s everyday eating experiences. In recent years, studies of food biopolitics have engaged with questions of agency by examining how socially constructed ideas of ‘good’ eating and citizenship are engaged on the ground. Yet, there remain opportunities to depart from the evaluative mind as a dominant site of ethical self-formation, and engage with the body as a site of political action and agency. In this paper, I argue that people’s sense of citizen selves has long been, and continue to be, organised across the interplay of material, discursive, and visceral spaces of eating. I develop this argument by drawing on a critical analysis of historical and contemporary news forums related to public eating in Singapore. For many consumers, their disdain for certain food—ranging from the erstwhile state-vaunted meal plans to leftover food on public dining tables—express an embodied agency in negotiating the technocratic designs of citizenship. In developing a visceral biopolitics of eating, this paper aims to expand understandings of consumers’ capacity in negotiating the ethical tensions between hegemonic imaginings of ‘good’ citizens and the everyday pleasures of eating. Approaching consumer agency this way orientates critical yet oft-overlooked attention to the body’s capacity to act, and possibly effect change, within the broader workings of dietary bio-power.

Which town did it come from?: Sourcing locally-made ceramics in the Mid-Atlantic

Historical archaeologists working in the Middle Atlantic rarely use archaeometric techniques to source ceramics. Yet, there are several important research questions we can ask if we sourced more of our ceramics. This article presents the findings from a neutron activation analysis study that sourced 100 presumably locally-made vessels recovered from an early to mid-19th century enslaved quartering site in the northern Shenandoah Valley determined that 99 vessels were made in the region and were able to source 90% of the vessels to three towns in the region. Using these results, we argue that in the northern Shenandoah Valley it is not only possible to determine where consumers went to acquire locally-made ceramics, but that doing so lets us create histories of local ceramic industries that highlight consumer agency.

The Swedish Consumer Agency’s calculations of reference values for some of the most common household expense categories

This chapter reviews the work of the Swedish Consumer Agency in producing “reasonable living expenses.” It provides an example of an expert-led reference budget standard that is grounded in social statistics and behavioural data, and supported by work with social surveys and focus groups. It also explains the Swedish Consumer Agency's work of calculating the costs of the goods and services that households usually need in order to achieve a “reasonable standard of living.” The chapter demonstrates the calculations that cover both individual and common household costs, focusing on the basic needs required to live decently in Sweden. It points out that the reference budget standards and values are ascertained from official statistics and information produced by research institutes, agencies, and expert organisations.

The Shadow of the Consumer: Analyzing the Importance of Consumers to the Uptake and Sophistication of Ratings, Certifications, and Eco-Labels

Why has the market uptake and sophistication of information-based environmental governance (IBEG) programs like eco-labeling increased despite mixed signals on the willingness and ability of individual consumers to support such programs? We argue that the extant literature on IBEG focuses too narrowly on individual consumer purchasing decisions to the exclusion of other mechanisms through which consumers, both as individuals and as an imagined collective, exert influence. As a corrective, we present a novel conceptual framework that highlights the different causal mechanisms through which consumers contribute to the uptake and sophistication of IBEG. We call our framework “the shadow of the consumer” since it suggests a more latent and indirect role for consumers than voting-with-one’s-wallet. Our analysis adds nuance and complexity to accounts of consumer agency vis-à-vis environmental ratings, standards, certifications, and eco-labels and helps explain the proliferation and growing sophistication of such programs despite the variability of individual consumer support.

Agency and responsibility: The case of the food industry and obesity

Obesity has become a global health epidemic and, as a result, a vivid debate about who bears responsibility has emerged. The book chapter elaborates on three fundamental elements that significantly influence agency in the context of food decisions: awareness and knowledge, the presence of alternatives, and addictive or addiction-like tendencies of human physiology and psychology. Under current conditions consumers do not have full agency to take full responsibility for obesity. Instead, corporations and governments play an active role in restoring consumer agency to make responsible food choices.