Sustainability and the politics of the body in alternative food consumption. An embodied materialist perspective

Health is a key dimension of contemporary food consumption. This preoccupation is beginning to overlap with ecological concerns, as healthy diets are said to largely correspond with sustainable diets. Nevertheless, this link remains rather vague and under-researched in practice. This article adopts an “embodied materialist” perspective to inquire into how the health-sustainability nexus is articulated in the everyday labour of people engaging in alternative food consumption. The interviews, carried out in Milan (Italy), suggest that focusing on health might not always be straightforwardly effective for the promotion of deep and systemic changes. The analysis finds three ways in which the health-sustainability nexus is articulated in daily life. If framed within the dominant articulation of labour and value, health is an individualistic preoccupation with limited potential for socio-ecological transformation. When food labour is guided by the very different logic of care, which emphasises relationality, fragility, and the search for a shared wellbeing, more ecological practices emerge, but with some ambivalent implications especially with regards to social justice. Collective engagement in alternative food networks politicises the body more deeply, making it a concrete site of struggle against unsustainable food regimes.