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This study aims to investigate consumers’ construction of food localness through the politics of belonging in a regional context.

Following a socio-spatial lens and considering the “realm of meaning” of place, this research focusses on local consumers’ lived meanings of “local” food choice, and hence adopts a phenomenological approach to the data collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with residents of the Italian region of Marche.

Drawing on Trudeau’s (2006) politics of belonging, this study reveals three interconnected themes which show how local consumers articulate a local food “orthodoxy” and how their discourses and practices draw and maintain a boundary between local and non-local food, whereby local food is considered “autochthonous” of rural space. Thus, this study’s participants construct a local food landscape, conveying rural (vs urban) meanings through which food acquires “localness” (vs non-“localness”) status.

There exists further theoretical opportunity to consider local consumers’ construction of food localness through the politics of belonging in terms of non-representational theory (Thrift, 2008), to help reveal added nuances to the construction of food localness as well as to the complex process of formulating place meaning.

The findings provide considerable scope for food producers, manufacturers and/or marketers to differentiate local food products by enhancing consumers’ direct experience of it in relation to rural space. Thus, enabling local food producers to convey rural (vs urban) meanings to consumers, who would develop an orthodoxy guiding future choice.

The findings enable regional promoters and food policymakers to leverage the symbolic distinctiveness of food autochthony to promote place and encourage consumers to participate in their local food system.

By using the politics of belonging as an analytical framework, this study shows that the urban–rural dichotomy – rather than being an obsolete epistemological category – fuels politics of belonging dynamics, and that local food consumers socially construct food localness not merely as a romanticisation of rurality but as a territorial expression of the contemporary local/non-local cultural conflict implied in the politics of belonging. Thus, this study advances our theoretical understanding by demonstrating that food “becomes” local and therefore, builds on extant food localness conceptualisations.

Men and women are now being admitted to membership of the major UK professional accountancy bodies in approximately equal numbers. This trend has focused attention on the ways in which professional accountants combine careers and family life, particularly when women have children. Recognising the limitations inherent in the widely‐used term “work‐life balance” that polarises life and work, this paper instead seeks to consider the “work‐lifestyle choices” made by female accountants. Work‐lifestyle choices refer to the ways in which people place different emphases on the work and private spheres, according to their individual circumstances. Feminist researchers have argued that women's work‐lifestyle choices have been limited by structural constraints. Over the past decade, a newer argument, preference theory, has emerged, suggesting that women's choices owe less to inequalities in the workplace and more to the preferences of individuals, particularly, but not exclusively, women. The purpose of this paper is to explore the work‐lifestyle choices made by female members of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), in terms of both structural constraints and preferences, in order to present a more holistic understanding of the work‐lifestyle choices made by this particular group of well‐educated, middle‐class women.

The paper combines feminist theory and preference theory in the context of the results of a questionnaire survey of female members of ICAS and 14 interviews with female members of ICAS.

The responses of these accountants suggest that, while structural constraints are evident, many work‐lifestyle choices were driven by a desire to spend more time with children, and by women's perceptions of their mothering role. Most women, while recognising the opportunities forgone, were nonetheless happy with the choices that they had made.

The paper contributes to the literature by examining the voices of female accountants in order to explore how perceived gender roles impact on career decisions and work‐lifestyle choices.