The European Sociological Association’s main biennial event this year took the IMAGINE project to Porto!
When: 27th – 30th August 2024
Where: University of Porto, Portugal
Set on the beautiful backdrop of Porto, the main themes of the 16th ESA conference were “Tension, Trust and Transformation”. About 20 researchers from Consumption Research Norway SIFO participated in the conference this time around, which for a long time has been a very important arena for the institute.
Between sessions, we also had time to visit the city, eat some Francesinha and get acquainted with the chickens living on campus.
Two presentations from IMAGINE
In the session, Imaginaries of Consumption, part of the Sociology of Consumption Research Network track, two papers from the IMAGINE project were presented.
Nina Heidenstrøm and Audun Kjus presented “The Utopia of Frugality. Imaginaries of Sustainable Consumption” co-written with Atle Wehn Hegnes and Harald Throne-Holst. The paper presents the narrative analysis of the consumer stories collected in the project (so far – the collection is still going and you can still submit your story on minner.no!). It in particular focuses on the strong presence of imaginaries where frugality plays an important role in a better world to come.
(See abstract below.)
Lisbeth Løvbak Berg presented the paper “Futures Literacy: Norwegian imaginaries of food and clothing consumption”, co-written with Justyna Jakubiec and Atle Wehn Hegnes.
The paper explores how futures literacy of food and clothing consumption is exhibited in the material collected in the project, across the three stakeholder groups, consumers, businesses and policymakers.
(See abstract below.)
Conference Abstracts
The Utopia of Frugality. Imaginaries of Sustainable Consumption
Nina Heidenstrøm, Audun Kjus, Atle Wehn Hegnes & Harald Throne-Holst
Oslo Metropolitan University, Norwegian Ethnological Research
Imagine that you are transported thirty years into the future. What does it look like? How do people live? What do you fear and hope for in the future? 137 Norwegian citizens answered these questions in an online qualitative questionnaire. Their responses take the shape of stories, imaginaries, of the future, that also consider aspects of consumption. More precisely, aspects of sustainable consumption because almost all the stories we collected revolved around man-made climate change, even though the respondents were not asked directly about it. When the respondents write about their own lives in the future, they do so in terms of virtues and vices as responses to the consequences of climate change. By means of narrative analysis, we examine how one virtue – frugality – is offered as an ideal for consumption both in micro-narratives of individual lives and in the macro-narrative level of the rules, ideals, and organisation of future society. The stories depict the frugal society of the future as going forward by going backwards to the consumption practices of previous generations. This frugality can be seen as an operationalisation of sustainability that translate into concrete actions the individual can take in their daily life. First and foremost, a frugal lifestyle entails engaging less with mass consumption and achieve a sense of freedom through self-production of food and clothing as a new mode of modernity.
Futures literacy: Norwegian Imaginaries of Food and Clothing Consumption
Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Justyna Jakubiec & Atle Wehn Hegnes
Oslo Metroplitan University, Utrecht University,
UNESCO has championed futures literacy since 2012, highlighting its importance in the context of imagining alternative futures and directing change towards desirable futures. It follows that futures literacy allows people to actively engage with the plurality of images of the future and relate them to their own choices and ideas of (un)desirable futures. While this includes understanding the role of the future also in people’s everyday consumption practices, which inevitably play a major role in the green transition, efforts are largely focused on policy planning, business innovation and higher education. We, therefore, ask what level of futures literacy Norwegian stakeholders exhibit related to food and clothing consumption. Based on stories collected from 137 Norwegian consumers, advertisements, and business strategy and policy documents, we highlight the different stakeholders’ narratives of food and clothing consumption to compare their engagement with present imaginaries of future consumption. We find that businesses and policymakers display a higher level of future literacy than consumers. In general, the narratives of food consumption are richer and more well-developed than those of clothing consumption: business and policy documents’ narratives of sustainable clothing futures are limited to the repeating narrative of ‘repair, reuse, recycle’, whereas food consumption narratives range from self-sufficiency to alternative protein sources. The latter suggests a higher level of future literacy, which may reflect a more mature discussion of food futures: adversely, the lack of attention to alternative forms of clothing consumption decreases the likelihood of a larger transformation of clothing consumption patterns.