”En sån här flummig typ, det har jag då aldrig tänkt att jag skulle bli”

Narrativ praktik och identitet i intervjuer med småskaliga ekologiska lantbrukare i övre Norrland

Abstract

Humans are part of nature, a fact that is actualized by the food we eat to survive: basically everything we put on our plate can directly be identified as either plants or animals. The way we relate to food reflects a vital part of our understanding of, and relation to, nature. And in large parts of the world, food habits are changing. More and more people choose food based on political and ethical criteria, e.g. animal rights and environmental concerns – something that could be described as a sort of reflexive behavior tied to issues of personal identity. In this article, I'm studying these changing food habits from the perspective of the food producers. With the help of narrative theory, I analyze interviews with three small scale ecological farmers and discuss how they navigate between constance and change when they describe their way towards becoming ecological farmers. It is three very different stories that emerge, that illustrate one way in which the choice to become a small scale ecological food producer can constitute an important part in socially situated identity construction.