The moralities of consumption and interactions among consumer cooperatives in East Asia

Abstract

Alternative food networks are embedded in sociocultural contexts and have developed distinctive features in different regions, but the literature has generally overlooked how AFNs interact and build networks across countries. This paper fills this gap by analyzing how consumer cooperatives in Taiwan have been inspired by pioneers in Japan, and how Taiwan AFNs now influence their counterparts in China. It shows that specific social material arrangements consist of translated books, the intermediary organizations and mutual visits facilitating a sequence of influence among consumer cooperatives across national borders. These social material arrangements disseminate a specific morality of consumption, teiki, that has reframed the food consumer as a ‘life person’, designed solidarity economies for ‘collective purchasing’, and established local distribution stations for agrifood education or policy advocacy. The paper illustrates how AFNs in East Asia share similar moralities of consumption, but have also adapted teiki to different social contexts and developed different imaginations of consumer citizen.