Jonas Bååth is a sociologist who studies the organisation of markets for agri-food industries and develops social theory of and through the social life of food and economy. He holds the title of docent in sociology and works at the Department of People and Society at SLU Alnarp, and is moreover affiliated to CIRCLE – Centre for Innovation Research at Lund University. His works have been published in outlets such as Journal of Rural Studies, Sociologia Ruralis, and Socio-Economic Review.
Bååth foremost teaches on courses associated with the master's programmes in Agroecology, Sustainable Food Systems, and Food & Landscape, and advise thesis work. He is also a recurring guest lecturer at other universities on topics such as food systems, sustainability, innovation practices, and ethnography.
Bååth's main research interests intersects sociology, political economy, social anthropology, market studies, 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. His expertise includes social theories of economic and food-related activities and phenomena such as alternative food networks, restaurant work and regulation, pricing practices, and the Swedish meat industry. Further areas of interest are ethnography, qualitative document analysis, the implementation of sociology in interdisciplinary research projects on (un)sustainable food provisioning, and the legalization and organization of intoxication (including but not limited to alcohol and psychedelics).
The main motivation of Bååth's research is to contribute to a more 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. Furthermore, he is passionate about research as a shared human endeavor and the intrinsic value of advancing our understanding of reality.
Current projects
Follow the food: Waste reducing retail actions – what happens when the food reaches the consumer? Funded by Formas: A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (2023–26). PI, Nicklas Neuman, Department of Food Studies, Nutrition and Dietetics, Uppsala University.
SURFIT – Scaling Urban Regenerative Food Systems in Transition. Funded by JPI Urban Europe (2024–26). PI, Christian Scholl, Maastricht Sustainability Institute, Maastricht University.
Getting the pulse to the plate? Overcomming barriers for southern Swedish production of pulses for human consumption. Funded by SLF – Swedish farmers’ foundation for agricultural research (2023–24). PI, Lisa Blix Germundsson, RådNu and the Department of People and Society, SLU.
Holistic assessment of crop diversification on productivity, plant and soil health and socio-economic feasibility – a case study based on an existing long-term field experiment at campus Alnarp. Funded by the LTV Facultuy’s seed money program (2023–24). PI, Raj Chongtham Iman, Department of Biosystems and Technology, SLU.
Bååth moreover has additional projects on the sociology of market regulation, aesthetics in fine dining, Alternative Food Networks, and more.
Previous projects
Alternative food markets: Promoting new modes of food provisioning and consumption. Funded by Formas (2019-22). PI, Christian Fuentes, Department of Service Studies, Lund University.
Production in a State of Abundance: Valuation and Practice in the Swedish Meat Supply Chain. Thesis project within the ERC Starting Grant Project Convaluations–Valuation and Evaluation Inside and Outside The Economy (2011–2017). PI, Patrik Aspers, Department of Sociology, Uppsala University.
Academic Achievements
Docent in Sociology. Uppsala University. 2024. (Reader/Habilitation)
PhD in Sociology. Uppsala University. 2018.
Academic Employments
2022- Associate Senior Lecturer. Department of People and Society. SLU.
2019-22. Postdoctoral Fellow. Department of Service Studies. Lund University.
2018-19. Lecturer. Department of Pedagogics. Linnaeus University.
Additional Positions and Leadership Roles
2022- Treasurer and Board Memeber. Swedish Sociological Association.
2021- Research Affiliate. CIRCLE – Center for Innovation Research. Lund University.
Guest researcher visits
2016-18 CIRCLE – Center for Innovation Research. Lund University.
2015-16 Agrarian Studies Colloquium and Department of Sociology. Yale University.
Extended Leaves
2018-22 Parental leave periods, 18 months total.
Rosa Hellman. Doctoral Student, Department of People and Society, SLU.
Sebastian Carlsson. Doctoral Student, Department of People and Society, SLU.
Bååth, J. and C. Fuentes. 2024. Alternativizing markets: the framing of moral commerce. Socio-Economic Review, 1-21. Open access.
Bååth, J. 2024. Relational work in an alternative food network: the fundamental role of shared meaning for organising markets differently. Sociologia Ruralis, 64(4): 592-612. Open access.
Bååth, J. and J. Nilsson. 2024. The art of being governed: the implementation of Covid-19 policies in Swedish on-license alcohol service. Food, Culture & Society, 27(1): 202–220. Open access.
Jack, T., J. Bååth, JT. Heinonen, and K. Gram-Hanssen. 2024. How individuals make sense of their climate impacts in the capitalocene: mixed methods insights from calculating carbon footprints. Sustainability Science, 19: 777–791. Open access.
Bååth, J. 2023. Towards a unified theory of market prices: turning to pricing in practice. Socio-Economic Review, 21(1): 5–23. Open access.
Bååth, J. and N. Neuman. 2023. Social lens or inherent social phenomenon?: The study of food in Swedish sociology. Current Sociology, 71(6): 945–963. Open access.
Bååth, J. 2022. 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. 2018. Production in a State of Abundance: Valuation and Practice in the Swedish Meat Supply Chain. Doctoral thesis. Uppsala: Department of Sociology, Uppsala University. Open access.