The pro-environmental consumer discourse: A political perspective on organic food consumption

Considering Zygmunt Bauman's concept of 'liquid modernity' as its starting point, this paper focuses on the need to research alternative methods of consumption and production from an ecological standpoint. Based on 31 in-depth interviews with highly committed organic consumers residing in urban and rural areas of Portugal, this paper aims to explore the shared discourses which inform on environmentally motivated consumption and its relations with consumers' lives. In order to analyse the qualitative data, discourse analysis was used, while supplemented by content analysis. It was found that the topics converge towards a political consumer discourse featuring three dimensions: the politics of production, the politics of localism and activism. Consumers argue that, by producing their own food according to the principles of agroecology, by looking for organic food within a local context, and by privileging community-based market channels, they are materializing alternative ideas of social economy, community and ecology. The results of this research provide a better understanding on the establishment of an alternative pathway towards the privatization of responsibility into collective action through the consumption of organic products and the way these are produced.