A cosmopolitan return to nature: how combining aesthetization and moralization processes expresses distinction in food consumption

Abstract

This paper investigates how foodies' adoption of New Nordic Food enables them to combine aesthetic and moral cosmopolitanism ideals. It demonstrates that consumers integrate aesthetic and moral cosmopolitan discourses through two complementary processes: the re-aesthetization of nature and the re-moralization of the exotic. These processes combine in a cosmopolitan interest for one of the last unexplored foreign contexts: nature. The findings of this paper contribute to existing research by showing that moral cosmopolitanism reflects a more individualized and less engaged form of consumption than ethical consumption. They illustrate how urban consumers perform distinction in contexts where nature is the most exotic unexplored context, highlighting further the reterritorialization of global cosmopolitan consumption, where food trends can only be consumed authentically in their context of origin. Finally, this paper shows how moral cosmopolitanism can support consumers who acknowledge the need for ethical consumption yet struggle with its adoption.

Intrinsic motivators of collaborative consumption: A study of accommodation rental services

“…That is, the personality trait of openness to experience fosters consumer cosmopolitanism by nurturing cross‐cultural experiences, which in turn trigger the peer‐to‐peer CC accommodation participation of consumers. This mediation effect is in line with both the view that the personality trait of experience seeking is related to consumer cosmopolitanism (Terasaki & Perkins, 2017) and the moral responsibility of cosmopolitanism correlates positively with ethical consumption behaviour (Emontspool & Georgi, 2017). Taken together, the mediation analysis results implied that, based on the current sample of the study, perceived risks and cosmopolitanism levels of consumers are two essential mechanisms through which personality trait of openness to experience exerts its effect on CC participation intention of consumers.…”

“…The first approach characterizes the concept as the opposite of consumer ethnocentrism and argues that a cosmopolitan lifestyle tolerates the cultural differences (Ladegaard, 2018). Other researchers (e.g., Emontspool & Georgi, 2017) find this thinking as “aesthetic cosmopolitanism” and argue that cosmopolitanism is much more than only being open to foreign products. They state that cosmopolitanism also includes moral sustainability‐related concerns of consumers (Emontspool & Georgi, 2017; Moosmayer et al., 2017).…”

“…Other researchers (e.g., Emontspool & Georgi, 2017) find this thinking as “aesthetic cosmopolitanism” and argue that cosmopolitanism is much more than only being open to foreign products. They state that cosmopolitanism also includes moral sustainability‐related concerns of consumers (Emontspool & Georgi, 2017; Moosmayer et al., 2017). Cosmopolitanism highlights the shared values of various interconnected social, economic and environmental actors.…”

How globalization affects consumers: Insights from 30 years of CCT globalization research

“…Second, they shift the perspective from the nation state to the globe by theorizing highly networked global cities, such as New York, London and Tokyo, as hubs for global production and finance, and as sites for coordinating the world economy (Sassen, 1991). From this perspective, global flows have created opportunities for imagining communalities between individuals who do not share the same nationality, language, ethnicity and country of residence, but share lifestyles, values and consumption interests (Burgh-Woodman, 2014; Emontspool and Georgi, 2017;Figueiredo and Uncles, 2015;Hannerz, 1990a). This results in a multitude of deterritorialized identities, including global nomads (Bardhi et al, 2012) and cosmopolitan expatriates (Thompson and Tambyah, 1999).…”

Conceptualizing the Field. Consuming the Other, Marketing Difference

“…Cosmopolitan citizenship may therefore involve a concern for the environment in a global world (Stevenson, 2002). Existing research for instance illustrates this point by demonstrating how consumers may combine discourses about aesthetic and moral cosmopolitan ideals in their adoption of food trends such as New Nordic Food, which gain global popularity by providing an aesthetic spin on local consumption, deemed to be more sustainable (Emontspool and Georgi, 2016).…”