Slow food: revolution through consumption?

Sociology of a reclassification of food goods

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the Slow Food movement in France, where it has been active since the 2000s. Born in Italy, Slow Food defines itself and is perceived by sociological literature as a consumer movement that offers a critique of globalization, concern for the environment and social justice. Announcing a mode of political action of economic morality (consuming the “good”, the “clean” and the “fair”), it aims to promote local products threatened with extinction thanks to media coverage and aid for marketing, favoring shorter circuits, communication, and social networks. Unlike movements such as the Confédération Paysanne, this individual action is sufficient to ensure egalitarian values. The research, mostly carried out among grassroots cells, revealed that the vast majority of Slow Food members are professionals whose interests are directly related to agricultural production, distribution, media, gastronomy, marketing, and the scientific field (biology and geography in particular). The action of the movement’s base cells, experienced as pleasure of good food combined with militancy, responds to professional interests, valuing food products that are in danger of disappearing from both a symbolic and economic point of view. We note the importance of trade fairs, which bring together buyers and producers, a large number of journalists who act as “catalysts of visibility and, therefore, of added value” and, therefore, of aggregate value. While designations of origin are legitimized by the State, Slow Food is legitimized mainly by the media. On the basis of this alliance with the media, the movement integrates different types of producers, including those who benefit from the promotion of its products thanks to the qualification of the movement, young students seeking to set up a distribution of luxury products, even a cook in search of employment. In this sense, the network acts as a very effective tool for promoting certain products nationally and internationally, as a demand for its sale, and a fundamental element for the structuring of economic activities.