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Stefan Wahlen

Professor of Food SociologyStefan Wahlen

Address: Senckenbergstrasse 3, 35390 Giessen

Telefon: +49 641 99 39310

E-Mail:

Twitter: @stefanwahlen

Skype: stefanwahlen

Consultations: Please check profile at stud.ip

Stefan Wahlen is Professor of Food Sociology at Justus Liebig University (JLU) Giessen. He studied Food and Household Studies at the University of Bonn and completed his doctorate in Consumer Studies at the University of Helsinki (Finland). He then worked at the Sociology of Consumption Group at Wageningen University (Netherlands). His research focuses on food culture in the sense of “doing food” as well as on the organizational and socio-political dimensions of food, such as the influence of social movements. Stefan Wahlen coordinated the European research project “FOOdIVERSE” from 2021 to 2024, which aimed to better understand the role of diversity for sustainable food systems. He is a member of the  Center for Sustainable Food Systems at JLU and the steering committee of SCORAI (Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative). Since 2022 he is co-editor of the journal “Consumption and Society” (published by Bristol University Press).  In 2019-2021 he was coordinator of the Research Network for Sociology of Consumption at the European Sociological Association.

 

Research interests

  • socio-cultural food research
  • food culture and food patterns
  • sociology of consumption / food
  • consumer and food politics
  • social (and food) movements and everyday politics

 

Publications (selection)

 

A complete list of publications can be found on google scholar, ORCID or researchgate.

 

Tobias Diewald, Juliane Yildiz & Stefan Wahlen (forthcoming) Exploring transgender transition and food socialisation. Food, Culture & Society, (2024) https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2329431

S Wahlen, F Forno & M Laamanen (2025) Neo-materialist movement organisations‘ scaling through strategies and consumer collective action: comparing three European food movement scenes. Comparative Social Research, 37: 93-113.

Jocelyn Parot, Stefan Wahlen, Judith Schryro & Philipp Weckenbrock (2024) Food justice in community supported agriculture – differentiating charitable and emancipatory social support actions. Agriculture and Human Values 41: 685-699. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-023-10511-w

Oona Morrow, Esther Veen, Stefan Wahlen (2023) Community Food Initiatives - a Critical Reparative Approach. London: Routledge.

Stefan Wahlen, Aurianne Stroude (2023) Sustainable consumption, resonance and care. Frontiers in Sustainability.https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2023.1013810

Esther Veen, Stefan Wahlen, Lian Angelino (2023) Exploring everyday food provisioning: the teleoaffectivity of meal sharing. Food and Foodways. https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710.2023.2162200

 

 

Vita

     

  
Since 9/2019                       

Professor of Food Sociology at the University of Giessen

  • Visiting professor at the Ecole Normale Superieur (ENS) - Département des Sciences sociales, Paris, France (February / March 2024)
  • Research stay at the Institute for Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA (April 2023)
  • Member of the Center for Sustainable Food Systems (since 2023)
  • Deputy Chair of the Examination Board of the consecutive degree programs in Agricultural Sciences, Ecotrophology and Environmental Management (since 2021)
  • Elected member of the Faculty Council of Faculty 09 for Agricultural Sciences, Ecotrophology and Environmental Management (2021 - 2023 / 2023 -2025)
2015 - 2019

Assistant Professor at the chair group for Sociology of Consumption and Households at Wageningen University (NL)

 
2012 - 2015

Lecturer at the chair group for Sociology of Consumption and Households at Wageningen University (NL) (0,4 fte) and education coordinator of the Ph.D. programme in social sciences with around 400 Ph.D. candidates at WASS (0,6 fte)  Wageningen University (The Netherlands)

 
2007 - 2012

Ph.D. Research at the Chair for Consumer Economics  of the University of Helsinki (Finland)

Title of Dissertation: "Governing Everyday Consumption"

 
2001 - 2007

Graduate degree in Food and Household Studies at the University of Bonn

With exchanges to the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain (2003-2004) and the University of Helsinki, Finland (2006-2007)

 

Memberships and positions of trust

Current Ph.D. supervision

  • Ifeoluwa Abulude: Assessment of food loss and waste among arable crop farmers in Nigeria. 
  • Anna-Katharina Demes: Transformation des Ernährungssystems:Raus aus der Nische durch Ernährungsräte?
  • Manale Andargie Embiyale: Intra-household gender division of labour and women’s time-poverty in rural farming households, Ethiopia
  • Siyu Li: I am immortal - a research-creation of parasitism and mutuality in expired food
  • Bärbel Mahr: Bio-kulturelle Diversität für ein nachhaltigeres Ernährungssystem
  • Paola Solís: ‘Other ways of farming’ - Andean peasant women’s more-than-human agricultural care relations 
  • Madita Zöller-Cannito: Praktiken der Bewertung von Schadstoffen im Trinkwasser