Challenging food norms: Understanding the dumpster diving culture in Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract

explore the various motivations for diving in commercial containers and to provide deeper insights into the multifaceted culture of dumpster diving. Methodology: Data triangulation combining in-depth interviews, ethnographic dives and netnography of online dumpster diving communities. Findings: The empirical findings show that the main motivations to dumpster dive are threefold: economic, ideological and experiential. To food secure individuals the ideological and experiential motivations are far superior to the economic factor. Dumpster diving need not to be a practice of consumer resistance, but can be a pleasure-seeking act that takes place in both online and offline environments. In addition, dumpster diving creates conflicting situations in which divers must negotiate beliefs and solve tensions. Tensions arise when ideological beliefs and the desire to have fun overlap, when wanting to express and practice resistance yet having to be silent about it, when altruistic actions and egoism overlap, and when vegans get confronted with non-vegan food while diving. Originality and value: This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the dumpster diving culture in Sweden, and they ways in which diving challenges food norms. It is unique among its kind and contributes to an understanding of the thrill-seeking aspects of consumer resistance and non-normative behaviours in a welfare society. Therefore, the study’s results are of value to further research within this scarcely researched field.