Sustainable Food Consumption in China by Alex Hughes (Hardback)

This book investigates the current and potential roles of food consumption to address sustainability challenges in China.

Focusing on the megacity of Guangzhou, it looks at sustainability and food from the perspectives of government, commercial, and third sector actors, and through the lived experiences of consumers. It charts the rapidly transforming landscapes of retail across urban China and the ways they are shaping and are shaped by everyday food consumption practices. Using a multi-method research approach of quantitative and ethnographic data, it provides readers with a rich and comprehensive understanding of the relationships and tensions between contemporary practices of food consumption and pressing sustainability challenges. It unpacks the complex foodscape in contemporary Chinese cities, from traditional wet markets to online deliveries, from supermarkets to farmers markets and alternative food providers, to understand the values and practices promoting and hindering sustainability in food consumption.

The book is intended for academics from advanced undergraduate level through to Masters, postgraduates and scholars across key social science disciplines including Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, and Business, and internationally given the global interest in the focus on China.

About the Author: Alex Hughes is Chair in Economic Geography at Newcastle University in the UK. Her research addresses social justice and environmental sustainability challenges in global supply chains, including issues of corporate responsibility and sustainable production and consumption in Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Pakistan, Malaysia, Brazil, China, the UK, and the USA. Studies have addressed challenges associated with labour standards, including forced labour and modern slavery, antimicrobial resistance, product safety, and environmental sustainability in sectors including food, horticulture, textiles, and personal protective equipment. Many of the projects have involved interdisciplinary and international collaboration, and partnership with state, commercial, and third sector organizations.Shuru Zhong is Associate Professor in the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-sen University in China. She is a cultural anthropologist in the field of food study and consumer culture and has conducted research and published widely on sustainable food systems and consumption in China.Mike Crang is Professor of Geography at the University of Durham in the UK, with expertise in the field of cultural geography. His work has focused on public and oral history, photography and museums and he has worked at the borders of economic and cultural geography, looking at the travels and transformations of various goods, including waste. He is also interested in more abstract issues regarding time-space, action and temporality.Guojun Zeng is Professor in the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-sen University in China. He teaches and researches in the area of food and beverage tourism, hospitality and management strategy. His work focuses on food and cultural geographies, especially the food geographies of tourism and mobility.Fernando Fastoso is Chair in Brand Management for Luxury and High-Value Brands at Pforzheim University in Germany. His expertise lies in the areas of cross-cultural and luxury brand marketing. His research focuses on how consumers interact with brands when those brands cross national borders (consumer psychology) and how companies can best adapt their strategies in response to consumer needs (brand marketing strategy). He is also a speaker and consultant.Héctor Gonzalez Jimenez is Professor in Marketing at ESCP Business School in Madrid, Spain. His professional portfolio has grown in various roles in marketing, education and corporate strategy. During this time Hector has worked on projects for small to medium sized businesses as well as large international companies. He is interested in interdisciplinary research that addresses phenomena on the self and consumption. Currently, his work spans areas such as cross-cultural consumer behaviour, body image and consumption, and, in particular, human-robot/AI interactions.Bob Doherty is Professor and Dean of the School for Business and Society at the University of York in the UK. He specializes in research on hybrid organizations, namely the marketing and management aspects of fair trade organizations and social enterprises and has published in Nature, Journal of Business Ethics and the International Journal of Management Reviews. Recently his research interests have developed to look at the role these hybrid organizations play in food systems resilience. Bob has also provided both oral and written evidence for a range of House of Commons select committees, House of Lords Food and Farming enquiries and for the National Food Strategy, where he has played the role of rapporteur at public dialogues.