Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Connor Graham, Asia Research Institute, and Tembusu College, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Many people have searched for the ideal “green consumer” whose shopping habits will lower their impact on the planet and its atmosphere. Instead what they often find are people who profess green principles, but never change their behaviour. Even those who are seriously trying to change are inconsistent in their actions. They save on food miles by shopping at a farmers’ market, but then buy wines from Chile and Peru. They install solar panels on their roof, so they do not feel guilty about buying a giant 4K Ultra HD TV. Rather than seeing this behaviour as hypocrisy or a failure of logic, I seek to understand how this kind of inconsistency makes sense as a way of dealing with the inconsistencies and contradictions of consumer culture. In doing so I discuss “rebound effects” and the everyday morality that explains how “green consumerism” can actually lead to greater total consumption.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Richard Wilk is Distinguished Professor and Provost Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University where co-manages the Indiana University Food Institute and a PhD program in Food Anthropology. He has also taught at the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz), New Mexico State University, and University College London, and has held visiting professorships at Gothenburg University, University of Marseilles and the University of London. He has an honorary doctorate from Lund University, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Trained as an economic and ecological anthropologist, his research has covered many different aspects of global consumer culture. Much of his recent work has turned towards the global history of food and sustainable consumption. He has written and edited 20 books, over 150 academic papers, 165 book reviews and shorter essays and blog postings. His most recent books are a textbook on the anthropology of everyday life, co-authored with Orvar Lofgren and Billy Ehn, and a co-edited collection with Candice Lowe Swift, “Teaching Food and Culture”.

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