This article is part of a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy on Digital Eating, which I’m co-editing with @taschn.bsky.social and Karin Eli. Stay tuned for more information on this very exciting collection!

Through showing that each logic of conduct cares for food safety through different practices and directs this care towards different objects and subjects, I argue that the shaping of consumer choice is becoming an important site of ethico-political intervention under platform capitalism.

Meanwhile, ‘uncurated’ platforms use a logic of ‘choiceful care’ in which ‘good’ consumer choice involves comparing the widest possible range of options. They use reviews and food safety ratings to drive sales towards safer vendors and incentivise other sellers to pursue higher food safety standards

Platforms operating ‘curated’ marketplaces follow a logic of ‘careful choice’ which protects consumers from making ‘bad’ choices by carefully ‘screening out’ unsafe or poor-quality food and presenting only foodstuffs and vendors which have been qualified as ‘good’ (and safe).

I argue that platforms’ food safety practices are designed to nurture and maintain particular ideals of “good” consumer choice. So, they don't prioritise expanding consumer choice above care for food safety but entangle both of these values within logics of conduct which are commercial AND ethical.

How do digital platforms like Deliveroo and Uber Eats protect consumers from unsafe food? And how do they reconcile ethical imperatives to care for food safety with their commercial drive to promote consumer choice? Find out in my new OA Journal of Cultural Economy article: doi.org/10.1080/1753...

Please see the workshop link above for further details of the rationale of the workshop and instructions for preparing and submitting your EoI. Feel free to reach out to Ben, Aarti or I if you have any questions — and please help us spread the word by sharing the call within your networks!

Participation in this event is free and a small quantity of travel funding to support attendance will be available, courtesy of UoM's Sustainable Consumption Institute (with priority given to early career researchers, scholars from the Global South, and underrepresented groups).

I, Aarti Krishnan and Ben Eyre are currently inviting expressions of interest to participate in the workshop. If you're interested in joining then please send a short (1-2-page) EoI and a CV to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] by 2nd July 2025.

The workshop aims to develop new networks of researchers interested in the emerging politics of sustainable investment and to explore questions and opportunities for future research related to this theme. See here for further details of the call and rationale: www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/w...

📢Workshop – Sustainable Investment & the Politics of Materiality, University of Manchester, 16-17 September 2025 📢
I'm co-organising an event at UoM exploring how relationships between politics, finance & sustainability are changing as sustainable investment becomes a focus of political controversy.

So, I'm really proud of all my collaborators and particularly thrilled to see this piece out in the world. Special thanks to Adam for holding the team together under difficult circumstances as PI!

Incidentally, this piece is the result of a long-running @britishacademy.bsky.social-funded collaboration (which started back in 2020!). I've enjoyed every minute of working with this team but it's been a long, complicated road from idea to publication - especially during the pandemic.

New Publication: Jo Hofer-Robinson, @nicolakirkby.bsky.social, Adam O'Brien & I ask how engaging with narrative fiction – and following characters’ encounters with infrastructures – might help scholars to navigate infrastructural (in)visibility. Available OA at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....