Raffaele Matacena | Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca (original) (raw)

Papers by Raffaele Matacena

Sustainability

The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disrup... more The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disruptions in daily food-related practices at the household level. In this paper, we evaluate the transformations that occurred in the daily nutritional choices and behaviors of a convenience sample (n = 2288) of Italian residents during the first nation-wide lockdown (March–May 2020) to assess the impact on the health and socio-environmental sustainability of their diets. Results portray a scenario of wide-spread change, especially in relation to the quantity of daily food consumed, the composition of diets and the time and commitment devoted to home-cooking, with young individuals emerging as the most impacted generational cohort. Through the construction of an indicator for healthy–sustainable transition (HST index), we demonstrate that such changes unfold on a gradient, revealing that while for many respondents lockdown nutrition implied overeating and weight gain, a substantial segment o...

Handbook of Research on Agricultural Policy, Rural Development, and Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Economies

Employing qualitative empirical data collected in Italy and England for a doctoral research on sm... more Employing qualitative empirical data collected in Italy and England for a doctoral research on small-scale primary food producers in the alternative food economy, this chapter provides an interpretation of the peculiar nature of the entrepreneurialism that characterizes those small-scale farmers who entrust their economic reproduction (at least partially) to short, direct supply chains and alternative food networks (AFNs). The chapter summarizes the strategies implemented by farmers to ‘go alternative' as well as the subsequent transformation of growing and business practices that such a process entails, for then comparing the researcher's empirical results with four studies on farmers' entrepreneurialism. Issues of care, trust, change-orientedness, risk-taking, lifestyle, and autonomy are discussed, and farmers' entrepreneurial spirit is found to be cautious, due to the interplay of a traditional farming business orientation, a more pronounced relational disposition...

SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE

COVID-19 As an Opportunity for a Healthy-Sustainable Food Transition. An Analysis of Dietary Transformations during the First Italian Lockdown, 2021

: The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disr... more : The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disruptions in daily food-related practices at the household level. In this paper, we evaluate the transformations that occurred in the daily nutritional choices and behaviors of a convenience sample (n = 2288) of Italian residents during the first nation-wide lockdown (March–May 2020) to assess the impact on the health and socio-environmental sustainability of their diets. Results por-tray a scenario of wide-spread change, especially in relation to the quantity of daily food con-sumed, the composition of diets and the time and commitment devoted to home-cooking, with young individuals emerging as the most impacted generational cohort. Through the construction of an indicator for healthy–sustainable transition (HST index), we demonstrate that such changes unfold on a gradient, revealing that while for many respondents lockdown nutrition implied overeating and weight gain, a substantial segment of the population conversely improved the healthiness and sustainability of their daily nutritional patterns. In this sense, improvements are associated with young age, socio-economic status, frequency and enjoyment of cook-ing-from-scratch and, more generally, an attentive attitude towards the quality, provenance and materiality of food that, in turn, the COVID-19 crisis appears to have re-kindled. We conclude by highlighting five areas of institutional intervention (i.e., young people, time, tools, food supply at work, and local food chains) on which to focus in order to ensure the current crisis does not rep-resent a missed opportunity for creating the necessary conditions for sustainable food production and consumption to take hold as the ‘new’ normal in the post-pandemic era.

Social Indicators Research, 2020

Workers’ wellbeing at work is a central theme for the development of institutions and enterprises... more Workers’ wellbeing at work is a central theme for the development of institutions and enterprises. Within this debate, a central issue relates to the search for the best ways to organize lunch-breaks and food services for employees. In the past, canteens had a crucial role for workers, yet the last twenty years have marked a profound transformation of the European economy, with the effect of diversifying workers’ foodways and their food-related practices while at work. Based on the research “Eating at Work” conducted by the University of Gastronomic Sciences in 2015–16, this paper analyses the consumer behavior at lunch of almost 9,400 workers, from ten different European countries. By exploring the workers’ foodways during lunch-breaks and how they answer to their individual needs in terms of nutrition, socialization, productivity and overall satisfaction, the paper points out that the lunch-break has major implications in boosting wellbeing at work, thus suggesting the essential role canteens have the potential to carry out.

Sociologia Ruralis, 2019

Alternative food networks are organisations of consumers and food producers that oversee and prom... more Alternative food networks are organisations of consumers and food producers that oversee and promote the functioning of short food supply chains, with the aim of fostering a direct and local exchange between producers and consumers. New short‐chain economic infrastructures provide food producers – especially small‐scale farmers – with a whole new set of commercial opportunities, directed towards the construction of an alternative food economy. But how does value circulate within these innovative economic platforms? And what values are debated, negotiated and exchanged through these circuits? Employing the analytical lenses of de‐commodification and embeddedness, this article discusses the modalities and outcomes of the processes of value‐creation and value‐appropriation that spring out of the direct exchange occurring between consumers and food producers in the alternative food economy. Based on empirical data collected through extensive qualitative field research in Italy and England, the article exposes the dynamics and limits of the on‐going processes of de‐commodification, proposing an analysis centred on the concept of ‘partial’ de‐commodification. This conceptual tool is used to assess the differences that emerged between the Italian and English fields, and to provide conclusive remarks about the potential of place‐ and culture‐specific configurations of practices to advance a transformation of the food system.

By comparing insights from three different fields sites located in the UK, Italy, and China, the ... more By comparing insights from three different fields sites located in the UK, Italy, and China, the authors explore how AFNs, in different ways that are context dependent, are providing a variety of alternatives to the mainstream food system. We argue that "alternatives" have both emerged and been constructed through a variety of social, political and economic responses which are dependent on the local conditions AFNs are derived from, and employing the lenses of locality, scale and food materialities, they suggest that alterity across spatial contexts points to a (hyper) generalised typology that may have interesting implications f or future research.

Seen as a response to the incumbent crisis affecting the food system, alternative food networks a... more Seen as a response to the incumbent crisis affecting the food system, alternative food networks are a promising link of a new food chain, founded on a sustainable paradigm. Their activities aim at realizing a process of ‘re-localization’ and ‘re-socialization’ of food production-distribution-consumption practices, holding a prospect for the construction of a more environmentally sound, socially just and economically sustainable local food system. In order to provide such benefits, though, a host of regulatory constraints and logistical and operational barriers have to be overcome. In this paper we argue that a potentially effective force supporting the development of alternative food networks is detectable in the rapidly diffusing trend constituted by the adoption, by local governments, of a set of urban food policies integrating food issues into the many spheres of urban regulation. Such policy effort may help to coordinate public intervention with the purpose of setting the ground for a healthy local/regional food system, and provide alternative food networks with stronger connections, political capital and legitimization.

Book Chapters by Raffaele Matacena

Handbook of Research on Agricultural Policy, Rural Development, and Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Economies, 2019

Clancy M. (ed.), Slow Tourism, Food and Cities: Pace and the Search for the 'Good Life', Routledge Advances in Tourism, Routledge, London, 2017

Eating is an intensely personal act. It has the power to communicate to our peers our beliefs, ou... more Eating is an intensely personal act. It has the power to communicate to our peers our beliefs, our experiences and our sociocultural backgrounds. As argues, food is a highly condensed social fact, playing a key role in the construction of our identities. Sociological, anthropological, psychological and semiotic thought deals with investigating the ways through which food consumption meanings are expressed. Food is a universal experience that constitutes a shared ground. It is an activity that brings together all human beings and is daily employed in order to meet basic needs, and yet its meaning does not relate exclusively to simple nutritional circumstances. Following a semiotic approach, the social and cultural use of food can be compared to a language. Synthetizing Roland Barthes's thought (1961), when a food item is bought, served or consumed, it is able to resume and transmit a situation, it constitutes information, it signifies. For the author, a meal represents a dominant character that is complex and helps to define a general system of tastes and habits. A similar conceptualization is also proposed by , for whom food constitutes a language that expresses social structures and cultural systems. Preparing a meal means setting up a communication system, a body of images, and a protocol of uses, situations and behaviors . As a cultural artifact, then, the meal possesses a prosodic value that transcends the physical combination of the foods on the plate , and such prosody allows individuals to participate every day in the past of their own nation , and, as Scarpato adds , in its present as well.

Scupola A., Fuglsang L. (eds.), Services, Experiences and Innovation. Integrating and Extending Research, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham and Northampton, 2018

PhD Thesis Preview by Raffaele Matacena

PhD thesis preview, 2018

Situated at the intersection of economic, rural and food sociology, this work focuses on small-sc... more Situated at the intersection of economic, rural and food sociology, this work focuses on small-scale agri-food producers selling their products through alternative food channels in Milan, Italy, and Manchester, United Kingdom. It investigates the role of farmers-producers in alternative urban networks of food provisioning, highlighting their practices, attitudes, representations, and logics of action, and how these are shaped by their collaboration with such networks.
By comparing the cases of Milan and Manchester, this work provides an interpretation of the reality of small-scale farmers in these two regions, highlighting the innovative practices they realize to seek viability for their farms within the alternative food economy, along with the corresponding ‘de-commodification’ modalities with which their activities are re-integrated within an innovative system of social relations.
The analysis therefore aspires to contribute to the debate on food sovereignty, sustainability of local food systems, and rural development, which are issues of increasing scientific interest as well as critical areas of local-regional and national policy.