Authors
Josephine Mylan
Publication date
2016/9/15
Journal
Towards a Cultural Politics of Climate Change: Devices, Desires and Dissent. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Pages
142-159
Description
In the UK, commercially produced orange juice, purchased from the supermarket, is an everyday, unremarkable product. Drinking orange juice is an example of “inconspicuous consumption,” which continues through the routine production of everyday life (Shove and Warde 2002). In the UK, over half of adults report drinking fruit juice at least once a week, and usually more frequently (Mintel 2013). Consumer expenditure on juice is substantial: in the range of£ 2.6 billion in 2012, similar in scale to expenditures on milk2 (Mintel 2013). Orange juice is an interesting topic for exploring the problem of climate change, because as juice products have diversified, consumer purchasing patterns have coalesced around the most carbon-intensive versions. Juice drinking is on a highcarbon trajectory. High-carbon trajectories are often used to explain why attempts to transition to less resource-intensive consumption do not progress. So, the study of orange juice presents an opportunity to explore the momentum in the wrong direction (Røpke 2012). The explanation I suggest in this chapter relates to the production of desire for particular qualities and how, in what form and by whom these are produced within particular markets and the wider economy. These desires are shaped by multiple actors, but I argue that those with economic power are particularly influential. This is demonstrated in the case of retailers who use refrigeration for reconstituted orange juice. The high-carbon trajectory of orange juice can be unpacked by distinguishing between four versions of the juice available in the UK retail market, each with a different carbon footprint (see Figure 10.1 …
Total citations
20192020202120221111