Normalizing Alternative Practices : The Recovery, Distribution and Consumption of Food Waste

Certain practices are excluded from markets, even though they may contribute to more sustainable systems. Other practices are integral to markets despite their highly detrimental impacts. This study investigates how alternative practices in the food sector became integrated into the market through normalization processes. Using a qualitative approach it examines the processes by which practices, including the recovery, distribution and consumption of food waste, went from being excluded from a mainstream food market to becoming normalized within it. Normalization occurs as a result of a community’s efforts and sacrifices in the construction of object biographies, and in the ritual transformation of objects and the meanings associated with them.

Keywords: Alternative practices, Normalization, Food Waste, Qualitative Research