Johannes Rudjord Volden

• Korsnes, Marius; Hansen, Arve; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes & Loeng, Martin (2026). Bodies in tension: embodied persistence and change in meat-eating. Food, Culture, and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research. ISSN 1552-8014. p. 22–22. doi: 10.1080/15528014.2026.2740964. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article examines how embodied knowledge contributes to both the reproduction and possible reorientation of meat consumption. Drawing on household interviews and a dietary experiment with consumers in Norway, we analyze three interconnected dimensions of embodied meat-eating: shared cultural understandings of meat as healthy and nutritious; habituated routines of shopping, cooking, and eating; and interpreted bodily experiences of taste, satiety, craving, and discomfort. Together, these dimensions show how meat becomes part of what feels normal, practical, satisfying, and at times necessary in everyday life. They also reveal tensions arising when habituated ways of eating, bodily experiences, and demands associated with health, social expectations, or dietary aspirations do not fully align. Inspired by practice theory, we conceptualize these frictions as “bodies in tension.” Such tensions may reinforce established conduct, be accommodated within familiar routines, or create openings for dietary reorientation. The article contributes to food studies by showing how bio-social bodies shape both the persistence and transformation of meat-eating. More broadly, it demonstrates that dietary transitions depend not only on changing attitudes or intentions but on creating alternative ways of shopping, cooking, tasting, and eating that can become familiar, satisfying, and socially supported.

• Volden, Johannes (2026). “Almost but not quite”: embodiment and materiality in encounters with meat substitutes. Food, Culture, and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research. ISSN 1552-8014. p. 1–26. doi: 10.1080/15528014.2026.2638598. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Plant-based meat substitutes remain contested among consumers. While much effort has gone into investigating attitudes and preferences related to meat alternatives, less is known about how substitute products are understood and put to use in contextually contingent food practices. This paper explores consumers’ experiences experimenting with plant-based meat alternatives in everyday life, drawing on empirical data from a qualitative, exploratory food intervention in Norway. With empirical attention to material and embodied aspects of food practices, the paper demonstrates how substituting meat with substitute products is enabled and constrained through acquiring, appropriating, and appreciating food in everyday life. The paper finds that replacing meat with substitute products was far from straight-forward: consumers’ embodied experiences of seeking out, preparing, eating, and digesting food complicate the use of substitutes, notably also for analog-style products. Although meat substitutes were at times perfectly suited to replace meat, the substitutes often performed in ways not fully aligning with, or measuring up to, their meaty counterparts. The paper’s insights have important implications for how we conceive of meat substitutes in the protein transition and for understanding the acceptance of new foods more broadly.

• Volden, Johannes (2025). Making meals and replacing meat with insects: an exploratory food intervention with consumers. Food and Foodways. ISSN 0740-9710. doi: 10.1080/07409710.2026.2606451. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Edible insects are proposed as an “alternative protein” to meat in future food practices but are not commonly consumed in many parts of the world, including Europe. Much attention has been geared toward consumers’ attitudes toward edible insects as a measure for “consumer acceptance”. However, less is known about how insects are actually put to use in places where insect consumption is uncommon, which has implications for insects’ acceptability and capacity to replace meat. This paper explores the meanings and functions edible insects gain in consumers’ meals and food practices in the situated context of everyday life. The paper reports from an exploratory food intervention study from Oslo, Norway, in which 14 participants from 10 households were recruited to experiment with commercially available insect products in their daily lives for two weeks. Participants found using substantial amounts of insects in meals to be challenging, in part due to the insects’ particular material properties. The most successful applications entailed meat substitution to a very limited degree, indicating the importance of carefully considering what role edible insects can play in sustainable future food practices. The paper argues that to achieve dietary transition from meat to alternative proteins such as insects, it is crucial to consider foods’ acceptability in relation to their “substitute-ability”, in other words their capacity to act as meat replacers in the practical context of food consumption.

• Wendler, Morten; Sundet, Øyvind & Volden, Johannes (2025). Who do we talk about when we talk about flexitarians? Appetite. ISSN 0195-6663. 219. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2025.108410. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Flexitarians are becoming increasingly popular to study in social scientific consumer research and flexitarianism is often seen as a potential solution to the sustainability challenges related to high levels of meat consumption in rich countries. The paper examines popular, historical and scientific understandings of the term, and identifies and discusses three central challenges with how the term flexitarian has been applied in empirical research. First, there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of who counts as a flexitarian. This makes it hard to ascertain shares of flexitarians across populations and difficult to assess the accuracy of existing estimations. Second, there is a tendency to operationalize the term in ways that lead to large internal variations. This often leads to the inclusion of frequent meat eaters in the category, which risks leading to overly optimistic accounts of both the prevalence and the transformative potential of flexitarianism. Third, there has been limited scientific discussion about the issues pertaining to the term ‘flexitarian’, which means that it is still unclear whether ‘flexitarians’ can usefully be viewed as a distinct consumer group. The paper contributes with a systematic discussion of the limitations and challenges associated with the term "flexitarian(ism)" and its use in empirical research. It concludes by discussing potential implications and by providing suggestions for future research.

• Volden, Johannes (2024). ‘A wing in the throat’: Negotiating edibility in everyday insect consumption. Geoforum. ISSN 0016-7185. 157. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104132. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper contributes to the ‘geographies of edibility’ by investigating everyday edibility negotiations around edible insect foods in Norway. Edible insects are positioned as an ‘alternative protein’ for the future with the potential to substitute conventional meat. Though already consumed in many parts of the world, insects are considered a novel food in the Global North, and their edibility remains a point of contention among consumers. Extensive research documents consumers’ attitudes towards, and reported willingness to eat, insects. However, less attention has been paid to how consumers engage with insect foods outside of artificial settings. Addressing this gap, the present paper explores how the edibility of edible insects is negotiated by consumers in everyday life. The paper reports on an exploratory food intervention in which ten households were recruited to experiment with commercially available insect foods for two weeks and record their experience through logging, photography, and reflection. The results demonstrate the crucial role of embodied everyday practices in mediating participants’ experience of dealing with insects, supporting a relational view of edibility. Not only the material properties of foods but also embodied experiences and socialised norms around eating contribute towards constructing insects as (in)appropriate and legitimate food. The paper’s findings have implications for the theorisation of edibility formation, and for our understanding of edible insects’ possible role as a meat replacer in the protein transition.

• Volden, Johannes (2023). Doing (food) without meat? Accomplishing substitution and qualifying substitutes in household food practices. Consumption and Society. doi: 10.1332/APSQ9102. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Excessive meat consumption is associated with environmental, ethical and public health concerns. Substituting meat with plant-based alternatives has been located as a key strategy for consumers to reduce their meat intake. While a growing body of research seeks to measure consumers’ acceptance of substitute foods, less attention has been paid to how meat substitution is organised through everyday practices. Based on 50 interviews with consumers with varying levels of meat consumption in Norway, this paper explores how substitution is accomplished in everyday life, and how substitutes are leveraged in the project of meat reduction. A theoretical framework connecting theories of social practice and food qualification allowed investigating substitution as a contextually contingent process rather than the outcome of a simple product swap. The paper finds that many participants were open to the idea of meat substitution, and meatless meals could be acceptable and often desirable. However, substitution was complicated by a prevalent scepticism towards prefabricated substitute products and lacking competence to provide home-cooked alternatives fulfilling expectations in established food practices. The paper argues that ‘qualifying’ foods as substitutes depends on a range of factors beyond the material reconstruction of meatiness present in prefabricated products, problematising the idea of substitution as a straightforward strategy for meat reduction so long as consumers are motivated and/or have access to plant-based options. Shifting consumption from meat to plant-based alternatives require fundamental changes in the organisation of food environments and eating practices beyond measures targeting consumer attitudes or increasing the availability of convenient substitute products.

• Hansen, Arve; Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn; Efstathiou, Sofia & Volden, Johannes Rudjord (2023). Towards plantification: contesting, negotiating and re-placing meaty routines. Consumption and Society. doi: 10.1332/WPKF9257. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes & Hansen, Arve (2022). Practical aeromobilities: making sense of environmentalist air-travel. Mobilities. ISSN 1745-0101. doi: 10.1080/17450101.2021.1985381. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Flying has become an increasingly contested form of consumption, but ‘green’ consumers often continue to fly. This paper provides novel insights into the stubbornness of air-travel by specifically studying the obstacles that environmentally conscious consumers face when trying to limit or eliminate aeromobility. Through in-depth interviews with Norwegian environmental organization workers – conceptualised as particularly self-reflexive when it comes to environmentally contested forms of consumption – we analyse how environmentalists negotiate one of the most environmentally destructive aspects of their consumption patterns. To explore how the social embeddedness of flying complicates the reduction of air-travel in these accounts, we draw on a combination of mobilities and social practice approaches. The participants considered flying to be problematic, but also often necessary in specific practices. Various expectations related to convenience, time, and sociality, led to a certain ‘lock-in’ of (aero)mobility. Zooming out to consider broader practice geographies, we argue that aeromobility contributes to the tempo-spatial expansion of many practices, changing their contents, meanings, and the contexts in which they unfold. To achieve sustainable mobility, we suggest that attention must be shifted from the air-travels of individual consumers to the broader practices in which aeromobility is embedded.

• Greene, Mary; Ellsworth-Krebs, Katherine; Volden, Johannes Rudjord; Fox, Emmet & Anantharaman, Manisha (2022). Practic-ing culture: exploring the implications of pre-existing mobility cultures on (post-) pandemic practices in Norway, Ireland, and the United States. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. 18(1), p. 483–499. doi: 10.1080/15487733.2022.2091328. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Issues of culture have to date been underexplored in practice-theoretical approaches to consumption. As a disruptive force affecting citizen mobility all over the world, the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique empirical context to explore how culture and practice intersect, specifically concerning how unsettling events affect practices across different cultural and governing settings. Applying a combined mobility-culture and practice-theoretical framework, we conceptualize mobility cultures as setting-specific arrangements of practices that shape and reflect distinct, temporally unfolding, socio-material contexts. Comparing three cities with different mobility cultures in Norway, Ireland, and the United States, we combine 63 qualitative interviews with a contextual analysis of mobility settings to explore how daily urban mobilities have been transformed. We find that existing variation in mobility cultures, including bundles of place-specific mobility-related norms and infrastructures, mediate the impact of disruption, shaping how changes in modes, meanings, and performances of mobilities transpire. Notably, the analysis reveals how underlying cultures of mobility shape how practice trajectories respond and are reconfigured in a pandemic health-risk society. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for understanding how culture and practice intersect and calls for further comparative culture-focused analysis in social science research on consumption. We consider how cross-cultural analysis can inform science and policy efforts focused on transitions toward low-carbon mobilities.

• Volden, Johannes (2022). Can we (de)grow meat? Bringing alternative protein in dialogue with degrowth. Tvergastein. ISSN 1893-5605. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Unsustainable global meat production and consumption are major obstacles for a sustainable future. Ecomodernists put their faith in the burgeoning food-tech industry to create a new market for ‘meatless’ meat. Meanwhile, skeptics of ‘green growth’ call for broad systemic and cultural changes in how we deal with food. To truly understand implications for sustainability, I argue, these new meats must be seen in context of (de)growth in production and consumption.

• Moynat, Orlane; Volden, Johannes & Sahakian, Marlyne (2022). How do COVID-19 lockdown practices relate to sustainable well-being? Lessons from Oslo and Geneva. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. 18(1), p. 309–324. doi: 10.1080/15487733.2022.2051350. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The COVID-19 pandemic has led to changes in everyday lives through restrictions that resulted in lockdown practices in the home, whereby practices were reassessed, changed, renewed, or newly established. Based on a qualitative study of lockdown practices following the first wave of the pandemic in two European cities with high living standards, Oslo and Geneva, we studied how changes in practices led to need (non)satisfaction and (un)sustainable consumption, demonstrating the significance of social interactions in how practices were coordinated. We then highlight the practice elements that favored or impeded need satisfaction, recognizing what material arrangements, skills, and competencies were necessary. Finally, we discuss the “normative accountability” of lockdown practices in discourse, in that the mutual accountability of various practices during the lockdown revealed the need for coordination between people sharing the same space. We find that social interactions are critical toward understanding how the lockdown practices were coordinated in given space-time configurations. Need satisfaction required grappling with social differentiation, as people with strong social relations, generous indoor spaces, and access to outdoor natural environments experienced higher levels of well-being. This situation has implications for policy making in terms of how societies can be reorganized to ensure “sustainable well-being” as a normative aim.

• Volden, Johannes & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2021). What Happens When Cultured Meat Meets Meat Culture? (Un)Naturalness And (Un)Familiarity In The Meat Of Today And Tomorrow. In Hansen, Arve & Syse, Karen Lykke (Ed.), Changing Meat Cultures: Food Practices, Global Capitalism, and the Consumption of Animals. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISSN 9781538142653. p. 185–206. Full text in Research Archive

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• Volden, Johannes (2026). Ultra-processing and microplastics: How do contemporary food anxieties challenge the edibility of “ordinary” foodstuffs? Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2026). Consumers’ experiences with meat replacement and alternative proteins in everyday life. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2025). How do academics and environmentalists negotiate their (air-)travel practices? Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2025). Tomorrow’s food today: An empirical exploration of meat replacement and alternative protein consumption in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn; Efstathiou, Sophia & Volden, Johannes (2023). Transforming Society Podcast: Towards plantification by normalising less meat-intensive diets. [Radio]. Transforming Society. Bristol University Press . Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2023). Can edible insects become the new meat? Exploring consumers’ experimentation with insect foods in everyday life. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2023). Panelist. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2023). Reconstructing meatiness: insights from ‘everyday experimentation’ with meat substitution in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2023). Friday tacos and outdoor barbeques: Re-configuring ‘institutionalized meals’ towards meat reduction in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Korsnes, Marius; Hansen, Arve; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2023). The Circulation of Meat: How contemporary food practices reproduce the demand for meat in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2023). Hvorfor er det så vanskelig å spise mindre kjøtt? Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2023). Probing protein futures: Experimental geographies and everyday edible insect consumption. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2023). Probing protein futures: Everyday experimentation and edible insect consumption. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Doing (food) without meat? The role of meat substitutes in the food practices of meat lovers, meat reducers, and meat avoiders. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). What's the future for meat? Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn; Volden, Johannes & Sundet, Øyvind (2022). Kjøttskam eller ribbeglede? Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Hvordan utvikler kjøttforbruket i verden seg? Hvilken rolle vil kjøttet ha i fremtidens matsystem? Hvorfor er det så vanskelig å spise mindre kjøtt? Kan kjøtt bli laget av planter? Vil vi spise melorm istedenfor kjøttdeig i fremtidens fredagstaco? Bli med på en samtale om kjøttproduksjon, kjøttspising, og kjøttkutt i Norge og verden Samtalen vil bli ledet av fire forskere i prosjektet Meatigation – Mitigating climate change through meat https://meatigation.no/

• Volden, Johannes (2022). Kommentar til forelesning av Richard Wilk. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Transitioning food consumption from conventional meat and towards alternative proteins: perspectives on justice and inclusion. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Kjøttets framtid i forbruket: Muligheter og barrierer for å legge om matvaner fra konvensjonelt kjøtt til alternative proteiner og kjøttreduserende praksiser fra et forbrukerperspektiv. Full text in Research Archive
• Efstathiou, Sofia; House, Jonas & Volden, Johannes (2022). MEAT meets! Jonas House. [Internet]. YouTube. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  MEAT meets! Jonas House – Insects are not ‘the new sushi’: Theories of practice and the acceptance of novel foods November 9, 2022 Recent years have seen increased interest in ‘alternative proteins’ that provide a sustainable alternative to conventional sources of meat and milk. A prominent example is the use of insects as food. Proponents often argue that insects are ‘the new sushi’, in the sense of being a culturally unusual food in the West that can nevertheless achieve widespread popularity. This argument, I suggest, is mistaken. Based on archival research on the history of sushi in the US, and qualitative research on insect-based food consumption in the Netherlands, I explain the reasons for sushi’s success and insects’ failure in becoming popular food. This comparison, I argue, provides useful insight into why certain alternative proteins – and novel foods more broadly – may or may not become widely accepted.

• Volden, Johannes (2022). Tomorrow’s food today: What can consumers’ self-experimentation with plant-based meat and edible insects tell us about the future of protein? Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Tomorrow’s foods, today’s practice? Visceral encounters with alternative proteins in everyday life. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Alternative proteins such as plant-based meat substitutes and edible insects are often proposed as sustainable solutions to conventional meat consumption. The envisioned ‘successes’ of such novel foods is often hypothesized based on quantitative measures of consumers’ attitudes and levels of acceptance, or sensorial interventions in the controlled settings of a virtual or laboratory space. Tasting sessions can be a form of ‘visceral witnessing’ (Sexton et al. 2022) in the encounter with new foods, but they obfuscate the socio-material, cultural, and tempo-spatial contexts of consumption in the relational foodscapes of daily life. Drawing on social practice theories of eating and recent scholarship on the visceral and embodied geographies of food, this paper investigates how established food practices are disrupted, reinforced, and transformed with the emergence of alternative proteins in Norwegian consumers’ daily lives. Applying an innovative qualitative methodology structured around informants’ self-experiments with plant- and insect-based protein foods, the paper searches for the ‘quotidian stories’ (Goodman 2015) of these novel foods, attending to the embodied character of their consumption. By bringing food experimentation outside of the laboratory setting, the study illuminates how alternative proteins become constructed as in/edible in everyday discourse and practice beyond existing attitudinal accounts.

• Volden, Johannes (2022). Unge er mest positive til kunstig kjøtt. [Journal]. Oslo. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Doing (food) without meat? Accomplishing substitution and qualifying substitutes in household food practices. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although the market share for plant-based meat substitutes is growing, little is known about how these novel protein foods are implemented in consumption patterns. This paper explores the role of plant-based substitutes in shifting consumption away from animal protein in Norwegian consumers’ diets and food practices. Through interviews with householders in four geographical regions (N=50) and urban park grillers (N=21) in Norway, this paper investigates how substitutes are embedded in the food practices of a diverse group of consumers – from meat lovers to meat avoiders. In so doing, the paper builds on previous works theorizing how meat substitution is achieved and how novel foods become constructed as (in)edible and (un)desirable, ultimately (dis)qualifying as replacers. By framing ‘meat substitution’ as a social practice involving several elements beyond the changing materiality of foodstuffs, this paper shows how the process of shifting consumption from animal to plant-based proteins requires broad changes in habits, traditions, social relations, and geographies surrounding food and eating practices.

• Volden, Johannes (2022). The quest for sustainable protein: Edible Insects. Matlære. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). Tomorrow’s food today? Barriers and opportunities for alternative proteins in household food practices. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2022). The Emergence of Cell-Cultured Meat: A brief introduction. Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Korsnes, Marius; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes R. & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2021). Holdningsendring alene gir ikke kjøttkutt. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2021). The quest for sustainable protein: Meat from plants? Matlære. Full text in Research Archive
• Hansen, Arve; Korsnes, Marius; Sundet, Øyvind; Volden, Johannes R. & Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn (2021). Kjøttkutt krever politisk styring! Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes Rudjord (2021). Flying Through a Perfect Moral Storm: How do Norwegian environmentalists negotiate their aeromobility practices? Mobile Lives Forum. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes Rudjord (2021). The quest for sustainable protein: Introduction. Matlære. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2021). Meating the Anthropocene: Barriers and opportunities for alternative proteins in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes R. (2021). Mat, helse og bærekraft: Hvilken rolle spiller mat for bærekraftig utvikling? Mat og helse i skolen. ISSN 1890-3193. p. 28–34. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Tilgjengelig online: https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/publikasjoner/2021/mat-helse-og-barekraft.pdf

• Volden, Johannes R. (2020). Klima- og miljømoralismen bommer på målet. Full text in Research Archive
• Wethal, Ulrikke Bryn; Hansen, Arve & Volden, Johannes R. (2020). Everyday life in a Pandemic. Endringer i sosiale praksiser: Tilpasning, eksperimentering og bærekraft. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2019). Aktivisme på godt og vondt – kan vi lære noe av PETAs hundegrilling? Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2019). Hyklerkoret. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes R. (2019). Cultured Meat Meats Meat Culture: Making the case for in-vitro meat production. Tvergastein. ISSN 1893-5605. p. 61–69. Full text in Research Archive
• Volden, Johannes (2026). Tomorrow’s food today: An empirical exploration of meat replacement and alternative protein consumption in Norway. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Given the increasing recognition of meat production and consumption’s environmental impacts, calls are made for a transition from conventional animal protein towards more sustainable options – including “alternative proteins” such as plant-based substitutes and edible insects. Despite a growing interest in such foods among geographers, limited attention has been paid to how dietary transitions from meat to alternative proteins play out in the practices of consumers. Directing analytic focus to consumption is necessary because reducing the environmental impact of food requires dietary change, and because the success of alternative proteins in replacing meat ultimately depends on whether and how such foods are adopted by consumers. This thesis explores consumers’ experiences with meat substitution and alternative proteins based on qualitative research from Norway, with plant- and insect-based foods as empirical cases. Rather than focusing on reported attitudes and hypothetical food choices, the thesis investigates how meat alternatives – as “tomorrow’s food” – acquire meaning and function in consumers’ food practices today. The thesis reports on two studies. The main study is an exploratory food intervention in which consumers from 20 households in Oslo were recruited to experiment with plant- or insect-based food products in daily life for two weeks. The intervention is complemented by insights from an interview study with 50 participants from four regions in Norway. The thesis adopts a practice-theoretical approach which directs attention to how food consumption is embedded and embodied in everyday practice. Two main research questions are posed: First, how do consumers experience and engage with alternative protein consumption in the context of everyday life in Norway, and what are the implications for meat substitution? Second, how can empirically studying everyday food consumption contribute to understanding the protein transition and its geographies? The thesis highlights everyday life as a site where transitions from meat towards alternative proteins are negotiated. Results are presented in four articles which in different ways draw attention to the embodied and practical aspects of consuming alternative proteins and replacing meat. By exploring consumers’ encounters with food across moments of consumption – from buying and preparing to eating and digesting food – the articles reveal a series of tensions in adopting alternative proteins in practice. Moreover, consumers’ accounts and experiments shed light on multiple challenges for plant-based alternatives and edible insects to replace meat specifically. Thus, the thesis provides important insights into what kind of foods alternative proteins are, and about their prospect of becoming “the new meat” in the future. The thesis contributes to geographical scholarship on protein transition(s) by fleshing out everyday geographies of alternative protein consumption, and to broader consumption literature by offering a practice-theoretical account of meat replacement in food consumption.

• Volden, Johannes R. (2019). Flying Through a Perfect Moral Storm: How do Norwegian environmentalists negotiate their aeromobility practices? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  While growing rates of air-travel contributes to large amounts of global emissions – and a substantial part of the environmental footprints of those who fly – it has not yet been subject to strict environmental regulations. Arguably, working towards sustainable mobilities will require to achieve a greater understanding of the roles, meanings, and implications of consumer air-travel. Recognising that the environmental issue of aeromobility hinges on both social and material factors, this thesis presents a practice-theoretical investigation into the ways in which 13 Norwegian environmentalists negotiate their own aeromobilities as environmentally conscious consumers, based on qualitative interviews. Framing air-travel as a social practice, the thesis has provided some tools for moving past the moral impasse of whether or not flying is justifiable; instead putting the focus on what aeromobility means for consumers, why they continue to fly, and, as an extension of this, how aeromobilities change and become (un)sustainable. The analyses demonstrated that the environmentalists were highly self-reflexive and spent much time and effort negotiating their (aero)mobilities. Adopting sustainable mobility practices was generally hard work requiring personal sacrifices. When construed as a practice in its own right, air-travel was thought of as environmentally damaging; something of excess, an overused privilege. As part of other practices, however, aeromobility became an important tool; an enabler of opportunities and positive experiences. The analyses emphasise the notion that air-travel is not only a practice in its own right, but part of many other practices with wider socio-environmental implications. The implication of this is that achieving more sustainable mobilities might require attention to not only the modes of transport in question, but to the wider social practices in which different mobilities are part. Based on the analyses, the discussion adds a new layer to the conceptualisation of aeromobility. It proposes that contemporary aeromobility can be thought of as an unsustainable “system” comprised of material and (infra)structural as well as socio-cultural and affective components, woven together through complex logics which inform consumers’ mobility practices in such a way that aeromobility is reproduced.

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