Vishal Parekh

Researcher, PhD in Sustainability Studies, focused on sustainable consumption.

I obtained my PhD within the research program Mistra Sustainable Consumption – from niche to mainstream, with Associate Professor Åsa Svenfelt at Linköping University as my main supervisor. My research has aimed to contribute to a transition to sustainable food consumption in Sweden in the near-future, by generating in-depth knowledge on how sustainable and currently marginal ways of consuming food can become mainstream. Specifically, I use qualitative methods to examine the potential roles of public policy, business, and civil society organizations in such a transition. My main teaching duties were in a course on social-ecological justice, with a special interest in justice perspectives beyond anthropocentrism.

Topics and research areas of special interest to me are in different ways connected to societal transitions for sustainability; post-anthropocentric justice, environmental ethics, and political philosophy, futures studies and utopianism, social movements, and how power dynamics and different interests and logics affect transition projects.

Keywords: sustainable consumption, food, social practices, just transitions, power