Biosocial relations in the garden: moving beyond the middle-class consumer

"This project explores how different - and potentially conflicting - biosocial perspectives between traditional and sustainable gardening trends influence the successful adoption of sustainable (gardening) consumption trends among disadvantaged populations. While sustainable consumption has been the subject of valuable existing research, its focus often lies on middle-class consumers with comparingly high cultural capital, often belonging to ethnic majority populations. This project investigates the adoption of sustainable consumption in contexts where doing so generates a risk of stigmatization, with the aim of providing public decision makers and consumer interest groups with insights enabling them to adequately mitigate this risk.

In this research project, we attempt to focus on a group of community-focused entrepreneurs emerging from these marginalized communities, who are attempting to break the stigma and taboo around the caste boundaries and venture out to remove the indignation suffered by the communities they belong to by adopting professions and building a narrative that legitimizes their consumption practices."