Hip and Practical: Cultural Capital and the Two Faces of Sustainable Food Consumption

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the connections between attitudes toward sustainable food consumption and cultural capital based on a nationally representative survey conducted in Hungary in 2018 (N=2,700). Drawing on the literature on food consumption associated with the creation of social boundaries, we sought to capture the characteristics of food-related attitudes of consumers with high cultural capital. According to our results, sustainable attitudes toward food did not form a coherent eco-habitus, but rather, elements of ethical consumption were mixed with (1) elements of conspicuous consumption and (2) health concerns. We identified two dimensions: (1) hipster and (2) practical components of food sustainability. However, our multivariate analysis showed that both components were related to the cultural capital of the survey participants. In linear regression models, we distinguished different (embodied and institutionalised) forms of cultural capital. We found that the effect of cultural consumption overwrote the effect of education on sustainable food consumption attitudes.