Positioning processes around vegetarianism. A psychological study of change in foodways from a socio-cultural perspective

2017-9-4, Gfeller, Fabienne

2015-10-22, Gfeller, Fabienne

Présentation du projet de thèse, avant soumission à la Faculté

2023, Gfeller, Fabienne

Positioning and position are notions that are quite often used currently in psychology, mostly with reference to Dialogical Self Theory and Positioning Theory. In this article, drawing on these two approaches as well as on socio-cultural psychology, I elaborate an integrative understanding of positioning. It includes a distinction between the socio-material, socio-discursive and moral dimensions of positioning, as well as a distinction between microgenetic, ontogenetic and sociogenetic scales of positioning. I illustrate the hermeneutical power of this theoretical proposition through the presentation of a study of positioning regarding the consumption of products of animal origin. I present an analysis of data collected in 2016 in a Swiss canton with qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 participants. I focus on difficulties in positioning and show how the classical approach in terms of I-positions, and analyses based on the two distinctions presented above, allow differentiated insights on dynamics underlying the difficulties to position as a vegetarian or vegan.

2015-9-26, Gfeller, Fabienne

Présentation du projet de thèse dans le cadre d'une rencontre de l'école doctorale Cultural Psychology Network.

2018-6-15, Gfeller, Fabienne

2019, Gfeller, Fabienne, Lebuda, Izabela, Glaveanu, Vlad Petre

2019-8-19, Gfeller, Fabienne

Paper presented in the double symposium "Measured and imagined lives: experiences of development within constraints"; Chairs: Pernille Hviid, University of Copenhagen & Tania Zittoun, University of Neuchâtel Abstract: In the WEIRD (western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic) countries (Henrich et al., 2010), a large majority of people regularly consumes products of animal origin. Examining the justification for meat consumption among those who eat it, researchers identified what they call the 4Ns: meat consumption is presented as necessary, normal, nice and natural (Piazza et al., 2015). In that sense, vegetarianism constitutes a deviant behavior to this norm (Boyle, 2011), that provokes reactions as it questions the taken-for-granted normality and necessity of meat consumption (Larue, 2015). However, the issue of meat consumption also intersects with many other normative discourses, such as being an ethical consumer, being a hedonist or being coherent in one’s choices. In this paper, I examine the way people who recently changed their foodway regarding food of animal origin navigate among these different discourses. In order to do so, I will draw mainly on Benson’s theorization of the self as a locative system that allows humans to orient and position themselves in material and symbolic landscapes (Benson, 2001). Analyzing data collected through narrative interviews and a dialogic experiment, I will examine how participants, in the positioning process, engage with these norms and how they measure themselves as doing well enough, exaggerating or failing. I argue that Benson’s approach is a useful tool for analyzing the positioning in a specific normative landscape, but that it tends to overlook the question of the resources and conditions that make a dialogue with the normative discourses possible.

2017-3-24, Gfeller, Fabienne, Iannaccone, Antonio

2017-8-24, Gfeller, Fabienne

2018, Lebuda, Izabela, Glăveanu, Vlad Petre