Sustainable Consumption Institute

Samantha Outhwaite graduated in 2011 from the University of Manchester with a Masters in Sociology following her undergraduate studies in Criminology & Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The research she is undertaking is concerned with sustainable food systems and developing social science understandings of the complex interconnections between food production and food consumption. More precisely, the research will take the form of a historical regional study of ‘Alternative’ Agricultural Food Networks (AFNs), through which she will investigate the relations, discourses, practices and knowledges fundamental to the (re)production of such food systems. Empirically the research will focus on ‘local’ ‘sustainable’ AFNs in the district of Cumbria, exploring these networks and the social life of their food products from their origins, organically / geographically and socially, through production, distribution and consumption to final disposal.