Meatless meat and meat free days: an analysis of interventions and the socio-material-practice dynamics of reduced meat consumption

Recent widespread calls and strategies for consumers to reduce meat consumption position meat as both an environmentally unsustainable but still highly desired food. Change is often understood as an unattractive and difficult process of relinquishment that also requires adopting new food related identities, and these perspectives inform interventions designed to lessen the presumed hardship involved. This thesis troubles such assumptions through a practice theoretical approach and by extending conceptual debates circulating within consumption geographies and environmental sociology. I examine how meat consumption reductions are aspired to and sought after, across campaigns, research and practical initiatives, using meat free days and the meat substitute product as two case studies. Additionally, the work explores how to observe meat consumption reduction through a focus on what I describe as everyday 'mealing' practices within which meat may have contingent or diminishing relevance. I draw on go-along stories about everyday meals, told to me by Australian householders participating in 'Meat Free Mondays' and/or consuming meat substitute products, to analyse the practical, material, and sensorial aspects of 'mealing-practice' change. With this knowledge, I redefine the goal of intervention to reduce meat consumption as achieving variability, flexibility, experience and exposure. The work contributes to an engaged and politicised version of consumption studies increasingly focused on connecting in-depth theoretical and empirical understandings of everyday practices to governing efforts that aim to address contemporary global environmental challenges.