Fostering responsible food consumption: A framework combining practice theories and pragmatism applied to an institutional experimental tool
Résumé
Consumer demand is considered a major driver in the food systems transitions and food policies have become characterized by a variety of attempts to steer food consumption by increasing consumer responsibility. However, there is a gap between the way to deal with sustainable consumption goals, and related forms of responsibility, in the institutional sphere and at the household scale. This gap reflects the disjunction between the normative aim of these policies and the cognitive and practical resistances in changing habits. This paper addresses the responsibility concerns pursued by an institutional experimental tool implemented by local institutions and based on collective experimentation. It draws on an in-depth study and ethnographic survey of two editions of the program implemented in two sites in south-eastern France. Combining practice theories and pragmatist sociology, we propose an analytical framework based on the key phases of habit change (disruption, problematisation, experimenting) and components of social practices (meanings, competences, artefacts). Our results suggest that this experimental tool, through cognitive and practical activities, allows for collective problematisation and experimentation which, in turn, allows for a greater reflexivity about one's own habits and stimulates the integration of new practices. In spite of the fact that the responsibilisation processes fostered remain at the household level, collective questioning and experimentation can both highlight what inhibits habit change and enable transformative change at this level. However, changes at a broader level would require the involvement not only of consumers but of much more diverse food system actors.
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