Papers by Galina Kallio
Frontiers, 2020
We have seen an emergence of transformative food studies as part of sustainability transitions. W... more We have seen an emergence of transformative food studies as part of sustainability transitions. While some scholars have successfully opened up their experiences of pursuing transformation through scholar-activism, assumptions underlying researchers' choices and how scholars orient to and go about their work often remain implicit. In this article, we bring forth a practice theoretical understanding of knowledge production and advocate that researchers turn to examining their own research practice. We ask how to make our own academic knowledge production/research practice more explicit, and why it is important to do so in the context of transformative food studies. To help scholars to reflect on their own research practice, we mobilize the framework of practical activity (FPA). We draw on our own experiences in academia and use our ethnographic studies on self-reliant food production and procurement to illustrate academic knowledge production. Thus, this article provides conceptual and methodological tools for reflection on academic research practice and knowledge production. We argue that it is important for researchers to turn to and improve their own academic practice because it advances academic knowledge production in the domain of transformative food studies and beyond. While we position ourselves within the qualitative research tradition, we believe that the insights of this article can be applied more broadly in different research fields and across various methodological approaches.
Agriculture and Human Values, 2020
Questions of value are central to understanding alternative practices of food exchange. This stud... more Questions of value are central to understanding alternative practices of food exchange. This study introduces a practice- based approach to value that challenges the dominant views, which capture value as either an input for or an outcome of practices of exchange (value as values, standards, or prices). Building on a longitudinal ethnographic study on food collec- tives, I show how value, rather than residing in something that people share, or in something that objects have, is an ideal target that continuously unfolds and evolves in action. I found that people organized their food collectives around pursuing three kinds of value-ideals, namely good food, good price and good community. These value-ideals became reproduced in food collectives through what I identified as valuing modes, by which people evaluated the goodness of food, prices and community. My analysis revealed that, while participating in food collectives in order to pursue their value-ideals, people were likely to have differing reasons for pursuing them and tended to attach different meanings to the same value-ideal. I argue that understanding how value as an ideal target is reproduced through assessing and assigning value (valuing modes) is essential in further explorations of the formation of value and in better understanding the dynamics of organizing alterna- tive practices of food exchange.
Tutkija toimii toisin - esseitä akateemisesta työstä ja sen vaihtoehdoista, 2019
Tiede & Edistys, 2019
Mainstream economic thinking has been criticized for disregarding the intrinsic relationship betw... more Mainstream economic thinking has been criticized for disregarding the intrinsic relationship between economy and material reality. In this article, we utilize practice theories to produce knowledge about the economy in the spirit of a weak theory. In our analysis we use households’ self-reliant food procurement as an illustrative case for exploring the economy. We argue that the everyday embodied experiences of actors mirror the implicit economic order. Facing invisible structures and taken for granted conventions through practices of self-reliant food procurement makes further visible “the economy” that otherwise remains invisible. Our analysis shows that the question may not be primarily about choices of people, but rather, interdependencies between practices make some actions possible and others impossible.
Books by Galina Kallio
Dissertation series, 2018
Motivated by an observation that new forms of organizing and alternative practices for exchange i... more Motivated by an observation that new forms of organizing and alternative practices for exchange increasingly transpire outside formal organizations, this doctoral dissertation adopts a social practice approach to study how food collectives emerged as a new practice for exchange. In doing so it challenges the dominance of markets as the focal explanatory concept of economic organization and shifts attention from organization as an entity to organization as emergent order.
In studying the emergence of a new social practice, the dissertation draws on extensive, in- depth ethnographic fieldwork on Finnish food collectives conducted during 2010-2017. Food collectives comprise of groups of households that collectively procure local and organic food directly from farmers and other suppliers and distribute it among the participating members. The data originate from participant and non-participant observation, interviews, meetings, social media discussions, documents, and archival material.
The empirical findings of the dissertation suggest that the emergence of food collectives as a new practice for exchange was predominantly a tactical rather than discursive accomplishment requiring people to invent their ways of doing while engaging in a bundle of activities and continuously re-connecting different elements, including materiality, temporality, meanings, and embodied skills that were in constant flux (Essay 1). The findings further point towards temporal and moral ordering effects of emerging social practices. The study identifies rhythmic qualities that enable people to sustain their food collective’s web of practices (Essay 2) and evaluative work that anchors common values in food collectives’ practices (Essay 3).
Capitalizing on four distinct practice theoretical approaches this study advances organizational scholarship, particularly the emerging body of literature examining alternative forms of economic organizing, and contributes to practice theory. The study finds that in order to emerge, new social practices not only involve new ways of knowing and doing, but also require people to unlearn dominant ways of knowing and doing. The study brings further attention to a web of practices and shows how social practices emerge by transforming interactional orders of existing practices and by re-connecting them in new ways. The study also raises important questions on the relationship between people and practices and offers methodological guidance for studying phenomena on emergence.
As the market economy is being increasingly contested at grassroots, the challenge for policy- makers is to understand and better acknowledge the role of alternative forms of economic organizing in the transformation towards a more sustainable economic system.
Routledge Companion to Qualitative Research in Organization Studies, 2017
How new fields and markets emerge and gain permanence is one of the central topics in management ... more How new fields and markets emerge and gain permanence is one of the central topics in management scholarship. However, despite their significance and the challenges relating to the conduct of such research, there has not yet been an overarching review of the key methodological issues. The aim of this chapter is to offer insight and guidance to those studying the emergence of fields and markets by laying out the basic premises and challenges. These include timing the fieldwork, choosing appropriate data collection methods, operationalizing the object of research, determining the theoretical framing (“what is this a case of”), conducting data analysis, and structuring the section on findings. We conclude by inviting researchers to engage in real-time data collection methods and to take further account of micro-processes in the emergence of fields and markets.
Röcklinsberg, H., & Sandin, P. (2013). The ethics of consumption. The citizen, the market, and the law.
Ethnographic research approach is used to study how food collective movement organizations (FCMOs... more Ethnographic research approach is used to study how food collective movement organizations (FCMOs) organize and create markets for locally produced and organic food in Finland. Increased evidence related to unsafety, unsustainability and unjustness of contemporary food markets has resulted in the mobilization of various food movements over the world in order to challenge the current systems of food provisioning. These movements are striving towards creating more sustainable markets – practices of food production and consumption. This study elaborates on how social movement organizations make markets for good food by engaging in and managing market exchange of local and/or organic food.
Conference Presentations by Galina Kallio
Scholars of organization studies and sociology more broadly have typically treated value as eithe... more Scholars of organization studies and sociology more broadly have typically treated value as either an outcome of, or an input for valuation. Here value is seen as a property or a price attached to an object, or as abstract values motivating action. However, examining value as action brings forth a perspective looking at how action, not merely things, gets evaluated in the practices of valuation. While we know that valuation is not a neutral process, the question of how the appropriate ways of performing valuations are established is still poorly understood. By drawing on a six-year ethnography on food collectives, I look at how valuation happens in the everyday practices of collective food procurement. I analyze how the values that are being pursued through food collectives are being assessed and justified. My findings suggest that moral justifications for pursuing certain values are materialized in the assessment of these values. I argue that value is embedded in action through the ways moral justifications materialize in the appropriate ways of performing of valuations. By theorizing value as action, this study has implications for better understanding value as one of the significant organizing principles of collective action.
The idea that practices and temporality are entangled has long been suggested in different theori... more The idea that practices and temporality are entangled has long been suggested in different theories of practice. However, the question remains how this happens and what it means for organizing and society-at-large? Building on a longitudinal ethnographic study of household food collectives in Finland, we explore and characterize this relationship as one of rhythms. We argue that the social practice of food collectives is based in the embodied rhythms that emerge through the interaction of material and rational rhythms, which together allow and constrain the everyday practices. When synchronized, such rhythms result in practice(d) time; an intermediate relational social order located between individuals and society. This practice(d) time is the result of the continuous interaction of three rhythms that can be imagined as three sides of the same coin – head, tail, and edge.
Exchange is a core feature of all economic activities. Surprisingly, prevalent research, specific... more Exchange is a core feature of all economic activities. Surprisingly, prevalent research, specifically within the economic theories and economic sociology, has treated exchange as being subordinate to markets. Moreover, while exchange has been widely explored within social exchange theory (primarily through experiments) and anthropological tradition (empirical ethnographic studies), a practice perspective to understanding contemporary economic exchange is lacking. Such perspective is important because at its core, economic exchange refers to concrete activities of buying and selling (or increasingly, giving and receiving) that ultimately connect to the practices of production and consumption – the core elements that constitute markets. In this paper, we develop a practice perspective to exchange by drawing on practice theory and anthropology. By conceptualizing exchange as a social practice, our study provides a novel and distinct perspective to study exchange. We develop a model allowing for better understanding how social order is being (re-)produced and how valuation happens through exchange. Our study contributes for better understanding the nature of exchange, and the core dynamics of markets and their emergence. Our study has further implications for scholars studying the emergence of social practices.
Research within valuation studies and sociological approaches to value more broadly has focused o... more Research within valuation studies and sociological approaches to value more broadly has focused on studying various practices and processes of valuation and suggested that value of objects arises from culturally and materially mediated action. While these studies have broadened our understanding of valuation practices, only scarce attention has been given to studying value as action. In this paper, I propose to study value as intrinsic part of action and in order to do so, I bring anthropological theorizations of value into dialogue with practice theoretical perspective. Empirically, I draw on a five-year ethnography on food collectives, which can be characterized as groups of households procuring local and organic food directly from farmers. Rise in the phenomenon coined as the sharing economy has popularized various forms of direct exchange practices making the questions of value even more salient. I found that food collectives formed a particular site for valuation enabling bodily sensing of food, believing in its origins, and aspiring for a better future through various practices through which ‘good food’ was produced. I argue that the these practices of valuation are morally informed practices having value in themselves and not only as means of producing value to a particular object – in this case, food. This study has implications for better understanding how materiality and morality are entwined in practice and suggests that practices of (e)valuation should be seen as morally informed ways of not only producing value (to some ‘thing’) but also of performing value; this, making the questions of value to become subject to not only how valuation happens but also why it happens in a particular way.
This study explores how a new practice for exchange emerges. While exchange is a foundational ele... more This study explores how a new practice for exchange emerges. While exchange is a foundational element of economic activity, and much researched in several traditions and disciplines, previous research provides little understanding on how exchange is constituted in everyday micro-level interactions. This is despite that economic exchange refers to concrete activities in the context of markets, or other systems of exchange. Further, previous research on practices, more broadly, concentrates on established practices, and thus provides scarce understanding on their emergence. By drawing on a four-year ethnography of the emergence of exchange in the context of food collectives, we address these two major gaps in the literature and make several contributions to understanding the emergence of exchange as a practice. By conceptualizing exchange as practice, we develop a perspective to better understand both the nature of exchange and the emergence of practices. Additionally, our findings have several implications for understanding some core dynamics of market emergence.
Research projects by Galina Kallio
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Papers by Galina Kallio
Books by Galina Kallio
In studying the emergence of a new social practice, the dissertation draws on extensive, in- depth ethnographic fieldwork on Finnish food collectives conducted during 2010-2017. Food collectives comprise of groups of households that collectively procure local and organic food directly from farmers and other suppliers and distribute it among the participating members. The data originate from participant and non-participant observation, interviews, meetings, social media discussions, documents, and archival material.
The empirical findings of the dissertation suggest that the emergence of food collectives as a new practice for exchange was predominantly a tactical rather than discursive accomplishment requiring people to invent their ways of doing while engaging in a bundle of activities and continuously re-connecting different elements, including materiality, temporality, meanings, and embodied skills that were in constant flux (Essay 1). The findings further point towards temporal and moral ordering effects of emerging social practices. The study identifies rhythmic qualities that enable people to sustain their food collective’s web of practices (Essay 2) and evaluative work that anchors common values in food collectives’ practices (Essay 3).
Capitalizing on four distinct practice theoretical approaches this study advances organizational scholarship, particularly the emerging body of literature examining alternative forms of economic organizing, and contributes to practice theory. The study finds that in order to emerge, new social practices not only involve new ways of knowing and doing, but also require people to unlearn dominant ways of knowing and doing. The study brings further attention to a web of practices and shows how social practices emerge by transforming interactional orders of existing practices and by re-connecting them in new ways. The study also raises important questions on the relationship between people and practices and offers methodological guidance for studying phenomena on emergence.
As the market economy is being increasingly contested at grassroots, the challenge for policy- makers is to understand and better acknowledge the role of alternative forms of economic organizing in the transformation towards a more sustainable economic system.
Conference Presentations by Galina Kallio
Research projects by Galina Kallio
In studying the emergence of a new social practice, the dissertation draws on extensive, in- depth ethnographic fieldwork on Finnish food collectives conducted during 2010-2017. Food collectives comprise of groups of households that collectively procure local and organic food directly from farmers and other suppliers and distribute it among the participating members. The data originate from participant and non-participant observation, interviews, meetings, social media discussions, documents, and archival material.
The empirical findings of the dissertation suggest that the emergence of food collectives as a new practice for exchange was predominantly a tactical rather than discursive accomplishment requiring people to invent their ways of doing while engaging in a bundle of activities and continuously re-connecting different elements, including materiality, temporality, meanings, and embodied skills that were in constant flux (Essay 1). The findings further point towards temporal and moral ordering effects of emerging social practices. The study identifies rhythmic qualities that enable people to sustain their food collective’s web of practices (Essay 2) and evaluative work that anchors common values in food collectives’ practices (Essay 3).
Capitalizing on four distinct practice theoretical approaches this study advances organizational scholarship, particularly the emerging body of literature examining alternative forms of economic organizing, and contributes to practice theory. The study finds that in order to emerge, new social practices not only involve new ways of knowing and doing, but also require people to unlearn dominant ways of knowing and doing. The study brings further attention to a web of practices and shows how social practices emerge by transforming interactional orders of existing practices and by re-connecting them in new ways. The study also raises important questions on the relationship between people and practices and offers methodological guidance for studying phenomena on emergence.
As the market economy is being increasingly contested at grassroots, the challenge for policy- makers is to understand and better acknowledge the role of alternative forms of economic organizing in the transformation towards a more sustainable economic system.