Jonas Bååth is an economic sociologist who studies the organisation of markets in agri-food industries and develops social theory of and through the social life of food. He teaches at the Department of People and Society at SLU Alnarp and is moreover affiliated to CIRCLE – Centre for Innovation Research at Lund University. He holds a doctorate in sociology from Uppsala University. His works have been published in outlets such as Journal of Rural Studies, Current Sociology, and Socio-Economic Review.
Bååth's main research interests intersects economic sociology, social anthropology and agri-food research. He seeks to further the understanding of how societies feed themselves, and especially the role and organisation of markets in food provisioning. Current projects study the organisation of markets for alternative foods in Reko-rings, the implementation of market regulation in the alcohol service at Swedish restrauants, and the formation of socio-economic relations among restaurants and local food suppliers. His expertise morover includes social theories of economic activities and meat industry organisation and marketing, especially in Sweden. The main motivation of Bååth's research is to contribute to a sustainable society by supplying fundamental social research that may help concerned actors to make expedient decisions, especially in cases that involve value conflicts of economic, social and environmental sustainability.
Further areas of interest are the implementation of sociology in interdisciplinary research projects on food supply, ethnographic and textual methods, and the practical managemet of scarcity, abundance and sufficiency.
2019-22. Postdoc. Lund University.
2018-19. Senior lecturer. Linnaeus University.
2018. PhD. Sociology. Uppsala University.
Books
Bååth, J. 2018. Production in a State of Abundance: Valuation and Practice in the Swedish Meat Supply Chain. Doctoral thesis. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Open access.
Journal articles, refereed
Bååth, J. 2022a. How alternative foods become affordable: the co-construction of economic value on a direct-to-customer market. Journal of Rural Studies, 94: 63–72. Open access.
Bååth, J. 2022b. Towards a unified theory of market prices: turning to pricing in practice. Socio-Economic Review. Online first, open access.
Bååth, J. and J. Nilsson. 2022. The art of being governed: the implementation of Covid-19 policies in Swedish on-license alcohol service. Food, Culture & Society. Online first, open access.
Bååth, J. and N. Neuman. 2021. Social lens or inherent social phenomenon?: The study of food in Swedish sociology. Current Sociology. Online first, open access.
Book chapters, refereed
Bååth, J. and J. Nordgren. 2022. Trip Reports: Exploring the Experience of Psychedelic Intoxication, pp. 328–341 in G. Hunt, T. Antin, and V. Asmussen Frank, eds. Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication. London: Routledge.
Bååth, J. and A. Daoud. Forthcoming. Expanding Social Resource Exchange to Events of Sufficiency and Abundance, pp. 328–341 in A. Kazemi and K. Thörnblom, eds. Social Behavior as Resource Exchange: Explorations into the Societal Structures of the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In press.
Book chapters, research based
Bååth, J. 2022. Avsmakningsmenyn och konstruktionen av kocken som konstnär [The tasting menu and the social construction of the chef as artist], pp. 98–114 in ed. K. Thurfjell, Med konsten till bords – Gastronomisk kalender 2023. Stockholm: Carlssons.
Neuman, N. and J. Bååth. 2018. Genusmönster på svensk måltidslitteratur, eller konsten att döma boken efter omslaget [Gender patterns on Swedish meal literature, or the art of judging a book by its cover], pp. 98–114 in ed. K. Thurfjell, O.S.A. – Gastronomisk kalender 2019. Stockholm: Carlssons.
Book chapters, textbooks
Bååth, J. 2019a. Den osynliga hand som föder oss: mat och måltider i strukturellt perspektiv [The invisible hand that feeds us: food and meals from the perspective of social structures], pp. 53–72 in ed. N. Neuman, Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Bååth, J. 2019b. Livsmedelsproduktion: en global-sociologisk historieskrivning [Food production: a global-sociological history], pp. 271–291 in ed. N. Neuman, Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Neuman, N. and J. Bååth. 2019. Ätandets sociala differentiering [The social differentiation of eating], pp. 227–247 in ed. N. Neuman, Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Book reviews, academic
Bååth, J. 2021. Why Economic Management Models Do Not Foster Morals. Symbolic Interaction 44(3): 682–684. (Review of Beunza, D. 2019. Taking the Floor: Models, Morals and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room. Princeton University Press.)
Bååth, J. 2019. Andreas Reckwitz: The Invention of Creativity: Modern Society and the Culture of New. Acta Sociologica 62(1): 112–114.
Bååth, J. 2018. Alan Warde: Consumption: A Sociological Analysis. Acta Sociologica, 61(2): 221–222.
Bååth, J. 2017. Michaela DeSoucey: Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food. Acta Sociologica, 60(3): 285–286.