By Nanna Mia Jørgensen

The CESAU research group ’Food and Consumtion’ works in areas such as the culture of food and eating, quality perceptions, obesity, food regimes, and ecology, to mention but a few of the group's interests. The group is coordinated by senior researcher Egon Noe from the Department of Agroecology. He personally does research in the food and consumption field, investigating, among other things, such topics as nature value and landscape aesthetics, rural districts and regional development, production management, and sustainable marketing.

A broadly assembled group

The group includes researchers who are, on a daily basis, concerned with everything from farming to philosophy - the group participants come from, among other places, Information and Media Studies, Philosophy and History of Ideas, and the department of Agroecology. Thus, the group spans quite the broad field, but has room for even more different topics and participants, Egon Noe asserts.

The group continuously do workshops as well as working on cooperative project applications concerning food regimes and public health, which will, hopefully, serve as the basis for future cooperative research projects among the group's participants.

Focus on food regimes

During this year's sociology congress in January, the research group 'Food and Consumption' cooperated to set up a work group under the heading 'Food regimes, consumptions and identities’.

This work group was an opportunity for the research group to discuss some of the topics with which they are normally concerned with peers outside of Aarhus University, thus gaining new perspectives.

- Food production is faced with a crossroads. We know that pruduction is currently experiencing difficulties. But not many people in the field are willing to take new paths and focus their efforts differently. Many have a financial interest in maintaining the current systems, and thus they are not interested in putting more effort into quality and the local.

This is Egon Noe's brief description of current affairs in the 'food regimes' field -- a topic currently receiving much attention, both in general and in the group.

Food and sociology?

The group has its focus on the participants' individual research traditions as well as gathering in community around sociology as such.

- We meet in the group with our various backgrounds. Here, the perspectives in our respective projects are placed in a larger context, often founded in sociology, Egon Noe explains.

For example, sociological cooperation in the group focuses upon:

• What is the significance of changes in forms of production for the perception of food quality as well as for buying and consumption of food?
• What are the social implications of the emergence of a highly differentiated food market, including processes of inclusion and exclusion?
• What is the role of trust in relation to the increased complexity in the food sector, for instance concerning a brand such as fair trade?

Should you wish to learn more about the group 'Food and Consumption', there is good reason to keep an eye on CESAU's website which will soon feature a brief video of Egon Noe explaining further about the group.

• You can also read more about the group here.