Dr David Watts

Dr David Watts
Dr David Watts
Dr David Watts

BA, MSc, PhD, FHEA

Advanced Research Fellow

About
Email Address
d.watts@abdn.ac.uk
Office Address

Room 4.044, Rowett Institute, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD

School/Department
School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition

Biography

Social scientist and historian based in the Rowett Institute. Principal Investigator on two Government-funded research projects, Building food security in Scotland and Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status. More information about my work can be found in the 'research' and 'publications' tabs. UCU appointed trustee director of the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Member of the Court (governing body) of the University of Aberdeen (2017-20)

Member of Policy and Resources Committee (2018-20)

Elected member of Senate for the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition (2018-20)

External Memberships

UCU appointed trustee director of the Universities Superannuation Scheme

Research

Research Overview

My research explores intersections of economy, society and culture. It does so primarily through our relationships with food.

This research interest takes a number of forms. I am interested in: food insecurity and how it can be tackled; how economic circumstances and food consumption practices are linked; how consumers and producers construct, materially and conceptually, 'alternative' economic networks, both now and in the past. This work is informed by cultural political economy, and I am currently working on how this perspective can be applied to smaller and micro-scales though an engagement with the work of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu.

I am also interested in the social construction of technologies, professional knowledges and practices. This is manifested in work that examines: the history of agricultural and food research, policy and researchers; the cultural construction of hunting and 'peripheral' rural areas; the historical social definition of network industries (specifically railways); and the development of specialist forms of practice (e.g. meat inspectors, marketers), which draws on Michel Foucault's work on the development of specialist bodies of knowledge.

Research Specialisms

  • History
  • Social Sciences
  • Food and Beverage Studies

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

Building food and nutrition security in Scotland (2022-27, PI)
This research is funded by the Scottish Government's Environment, Agriculture and Food Strategic Research Programme

Aim: to provide evidence for, explore and recommend new ways of providing, dignified options for Scotland’s more vulnerable residents to consume healthy food and drink in ways that provide opportunities for Scotland’s food sector to operate in environmentally and financially sustainable ways.

Objectives:

1. Knowledge exchange and co-development of the research

2. Key informant interviews to improve our understanding of food supply chain issues that can exacerbate food insecurity, and of how and why food supply networks develop and adapt in response

3. Literature review of studies of methods that have sought to eradicate the need for food aid

4. Identification of ‘gaps’ / opportunities in Scotland's food aid distribution network that could be filled with healthier and lower-environmental-impact alternatives from Scottish producers

5. Understand what food insecure people actually consume and where healthier and lower-environmental-impact alternatives can be substituted into their diets

6. Evaluate the potential of a mechanism(s) to replace food banks as a primary response to food insecurity

 

Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status (2022-27, PI)
This research is funded by the Scottish Government's Scottish Government's Environment, Agriculture and Food Strategic Research Programme.

This project aims to review the costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status. It has three main stages:

1. Systematic literature review of costs and opportunities for food and drink products with higher value status.

2. Identification of Scottish products with higher value status and economic analyses of: their prices and production costs relative to conventional products; how higher-value products differentiate themselves from conventional products and what the trade-offs are. Products will be chosen which: make an important contribution to Scotland’s food exports; encompass a variety of higher-value accreditation and marketing strategies; and/or come from contrasting policy backgrounds (e.g. CAP or non-CAP).

3. Choice experiments will be run to analyse, first, the factors and characteristics that consumers use to guide their preferences and, secondly, their willingness to consume higher value status Scottish food products.

We are producing case studies as the research progresses:

Consumers’ willingness to pay for Specially Selected Pork

Past Research

Food Insecurity in Scotland (2016-22, PI)

This research was funded by the Scottish Government's Environment, Agriculture and Food Strategic Research Programme. It had two main components:1. A qualitative exploration of the lived experience of food insecurity, drawing on the experiences of people who declared themselves, in the Scottish Health Survey, to have suffered some form of food insecurity over the previous twelve months. 2. Interview elicitation of the experiences of staff and volunteers involved in emergency food provisioning for families with school-aged children during Scotland’s Covid-19 lockdowns (click here for a summary of the findings).

 

Local Food (2016-22, PI)

This research was funded by the Scottish Government's Environment, Agriculture and Food Strategic Research Programme. Its main objective was to generate new insights, through a large-scale survey and follow-up interviews, of the activities of and links between small and medium-sized food growing, processing and retailing enterprises, with a particular focus on the investigation of their involvement (or not) in 'alternative' food networks.

 

Healthy food practices and their socio-economic context (2018-20, PI)

Previous work by colleagues in the Rowett Institute identified, from analysis of data from the National Diet & Nutrition Survey (NDNS), that about ten per cent of people on low incomes eat significantly healthier diets than others in similar economic circumstances. This project conducted qualitative research with opted-in NDNS respondents in order to improve our understanding of the social and cultural factors that enable people on modest incomes to eat a healthy diet.

Supervision

PhD students

Kieran Fowler (started October 2023). Kieran is studying the healthfulness and sustainability of food practices across the lifecourse of adults in Scotland and is based in the Rowett Institute. I am Kieran's lead supervisor, Dr John McKenzie and Professor Jennie Macdiarmid are co-supervisors.

Ming Gao (started October 2022). Ming is studying synthetic food colours since the late nineteenth century and is based in History. Dr Ben Marsden is Ming's lead supervisor, I am co-spervisor.

 

Completed PhD projects

Lucy Sam, An Investigation of Domestic Food Practices and Routines and their Determinants (2016-20). Co-supervised with Prof. Jennie Macdiarmid (Rowett Institute) and Dr Tony Craig (James Hutton Institute). Funded by the Rowett Institute. Lucy's thesis was sustained in March 2021.

Giles O’Donovan (p/t), Re-thinking Food Security and Food Governance, with special reference to horticulture (2015-20). Supervised with Prof. Deb Roberts (James Hutton Institute & University of Aberdeen Business School). Giles's thesis was sustained in November 2020.

Ramona Statache, Business social media use by remote rural micro tourism enterprises in the Scottish Highlands. Supervised with Dr Rachel Shanks (Education) and Dr Mark Beecroft (Engineering). Ramona's thesis was sustained in December 2019.

Dr Stoyka Chipchakova, Addressing food security by controlling the risk of food poisoning: a case study of listeriosis in the Scottish smoked salmon industry. Co-supervised with Profs Norval Strachan (Physics) and Ken Forbes (Medical Sciences). Stoyka graduated in November 2018.

Dr Annabelle McLaren-Thomson, Small tourism businesses in rural Scotland: Exploring owner-managers’ understandings of social sustainability. Co-supervised with Professor Colin Hunter (University of St Andrews). Annabelle graduated (from St Andrews) in November 2016.

Funding and Grants

Previous research funding

Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) Gateway and Highlands and Islands Enterprise Fellowship (2020). The outcome of this award is a Report on the Potential for the Highlands and Islands to be Involved in the Arctic Foods Innovation Cluster.

Understanding consumers’ food choices in Scotland (2015-16, PI), funded by the Scottish Government's Environment, Agriculture and Food Strategic Research Programme.
This project used Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to analyse the meanings ascribed to food by consumers and how these link to habitual food consumption patterns. Data were gathered using qualitative interviews and by respondents keeping food purchase and consumption diaries.

Consumers’ attitudes towards plant-derived proteins as an alternative to meat (2015-16, Co-I), funded by the Scottish Government.
This work used focus groups to explore people’s willingness to reduce meat consumption by replacing some of it with plant-derived proteins. It was part of a larger project that sought new ways of reducing meat consumption.

The cultural political economy of co-operation in Britain: an historical geography perspective (2013, PI). The work was funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, with in-kind support from the University of Aberdeen.

Visiting Scholarship (2012) at the Ruralia Institute, Seinäjoki Unit, University of Helsinki (Finland).

Publications

Page 1 of 1 Results 1 to 39 of 39

  • The distribution and functions of food support organisations in Scotland and their implications for policy

    Watts, D., Slater, R., McKenzie, J.
    Scottish Affairs, vol. 34, no. 1
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Science policy, ‘strategic’ research and journal papers: exploring their influence on the history of the Rowett Research Institute

    Watts, D.
    Centaurus
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • A trade-off analysis model for the pig to pork supply chain in Scotland

    Slater, R., Akaichi, F., Watts, D., Giha, C. L. R.
    Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) (internet).
    Other Contributions: Other Contributions
  • Consumers’ willingness to pay for Specially Selected Pork

    Akaichi, F., Giha, C. L. R., Slater, R., Watts, D.
    Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) (internet).
    Other Contributions: Other Contributions
  • Making silk purses out of sows’ ears –: challenges facing a Scottish pig farmer

    Akaichi, F., McKenzie, J., Giha, C. L. R., Slater, R., Watts, D.
    Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) (internet).
    Other Contributions: Other Contributions
  • Making silk purses out of sows’ ears – challenges and opportunities facing the Scottish Pork Sector

    Akaichi, F., Slater, R., Giha, C. L. R., Watts, D.
    Contributions to Specialist Publications
  • Food ideals, food rules and the subjective construction of a healthy diet

    McKenzie, J. S., Watts, D.
    Food and Foodways, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 66-86
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Re-thinking the relationship between food insecurity, health and social isolation

    McKenzie, J., Watts, D.
    Nutrition Society Live 2020, E740
    Contributions to Journals: Abstracts
  • What information do consumers want about the greenhouse gas emissions of their diets?

    Slater, R., Craig, L., Chalmers, N., Watts, D.
    Contributions to Journals: Conference Articles
  • UK residents with low incomes and healthy diets: in search of exemplars

    Slater, R., Craig, L., Watts, D.
    Contributions to Journals: Conference Articles
  • UK residents with low incomes and healthy diets: in search of exemplars

    Slater, R., Craig, L., Watts, D.
    Contributions to Conferences: Other Contributions
  • The relationship between perceived time pressure and food practices among UK adults in employment

    Sam, L., Craig, T., Watts, D., Macdiarmid, J. I.
    Nutrition Society Live 2020, E755
    Contributions to Journals: Abstracts
  • “Things like tinned burgers and tinned macaroni, I ate as a kid - I would not look at it twice!”: Understanding changing eating practices across the lifecourse

    McKenzie, J. S., Watts, D.
    Food, Culture & Society, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 66-85
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Nudging, formulating new products, and the lifecourse: a qualitative assessment of the viability of three methods for reducing Scottish meat consumption for health, ethical, and environmental reasons

    McBey, D., Watts, D., Johnstone, A. M.
    Appetite, vol. 142, 104349
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • 'I am pleased to shop somewhere that is fighting the supermarkets a little bit': A cultural political economy of alternative food networks

    Watts, D., Little, J., Ilbery, B.
    Geoforum, vol. 91, pp. 21-29
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Hunting cultures and the ‘northern periphery’: Exploring their relationship in Scotland and Finland

    Watts, D., Matilainen, A., Kurki, S. P., Keskinarkaus, S., Hunter, C.
    Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 54, pp. 255-265
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Building an alternative economic network? Consumer cooperation in Scotland from the 1870s to the 1960s

    Watts, D. C. H.
    Economic History Review, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 143-170
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Regionalization and the rescaling of agro-food governance: Case study evidence from two English regions

    Little, J., Ilbery, B., Watts, D., Gilg, A., Simpson, S.
    Political Geography, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 83-93
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • An analysis of marketing channels of local food in Scotland

    Revoredo Giha, C., Watts, D. C. H., Leat, P. M. K.
    Sviluppo Locale, vol. XV, no. 37-38, pp. 25-44
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Scottish Sporting Estates and Multifunctionality: a review of stakeholder perceptions

    Watts, D. C. H., Hunter, C. J.
    Contributions to Conferences: Papers
  • Local Food Activity in Scotland: Empirical Evidence and Research Agenda

    Watts, D., Leat, P., Revoredo Giha, C.
    Regional Studies, vol. 45, no. 9, pp. 1187-1205
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Attitudes of food entrepreneurs towards two grant schemes under the first England Rural Development Programme, 2000–2006

    Ilbery, B., Watts, D., Little, J., Gilg, A., Simpson, S.
    Land Use Policy, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 683–689
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Local food activity in the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain

    Ricketts Hein, J., Watts, D.
    Irish Geography, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 135-147
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Property matters: agricultural restructuring and changing landlord–tenant relationships in England

    Ilbery, B., Maye, D., Watts, D., Holloway, L.
    Geoforum, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 423–434
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Cross-country comparison of social sustainability findings

    Watts, D., Hunter, C. J.
    The social sustainability of hunting tourism in northern Europe. Matilainen, A., Keskinarkaus, S. (eds.). Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki, pp. 102-110, 9 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Property, ownership and landlord-tenant relationships in English agriculture

    Ilbery, B., Maye, D., Watts, D. C. H., Holloway, L.
    Geographical perspectives on sustainable rural change. Winchell, D., Ramsey, D., Koster, R., Robinson, G. (eds.). Eastern Washington University Press, pp. 41-60, 20 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Social sustainability of hunting tourism in Scotland

    Watts, D., Hunter, C. J.
    The social sustainability of hunting tourism in northern Europe. Matilainen, A., Keskinarkaus, S. (eds.). Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki, pp. 74-101, 18 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • How sustainable is hunting tourism in Scotland?: A review of stakeholder perceptions

    Watts, D., Fiorini, S., Hunter, C. J.
    Contributions to Conferences: Papers
  • Farm diversification, tenancy and CAP reform: Results from a survey of tenant farmers in England

    Maye, D., Ilbery, B., Watts, D.
    Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 333-342
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Gender, Consumption and the Relocalisation of Food: a research agenda

    Little, J. K., Ilbery, B., Watts, D. C. H.
    Sociologia Ruralis, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 201-217
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Implementing Pillar II of the Common Agricultural Policy in England: Geographies of the Rural Enterprise Scheme and Processing and Marketing Grant

    Watts, D. C. H., Ilbery, B., Maye, D., Holloway, L.
    Land Use Policy, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 683-694
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Making re-connections in agro-food geography

    Watts, D. C. H., Ilbery, B., Maye, D.
    The Rural: critical essays in human geography. Munton, R. (ed.). Ashgate, pp. 165-183, 18 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Networking Practices among ‘Alternative’ Food Producers in England’s West Midlands Region

    Watts, D. C. H., Ilbery, B., Jones, G.
    Alternative Food Geographies: Representation and Practice. Maye, D., Holloway, L., Kneafsey, M. (eds.). Elsevier Science, pp. 289-307, 19 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Single Farm Payments, Diversification and Tenant Farming in England

    Ilbery, B., Maye, D., Watts, D. C. H., Holloway, L.
    Contemporary Rural Geographies: Land, property and resources in Britain: Essays in Honour of Richard Munton. Clout, H. (ed.). Routledge, pp. 149-167, 19 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • A baseline study of the effects of the Single Farm Payment on the diversification activities of tenant farmers

    Ilbery, B., Maye, D., Watts, D. C. H.
    Journal of Rural Enterprise and Management, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5-18
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Mapping local foods: evidence from two English regions

    Ilbery, B., Watts, D., Simpson, S., Gilg, A., Little, J.
    British Food Journal, vol. 108, no. 3, pp. 213-225
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Making reconnections in agro-food geography: alternative systems of food provision

    Watts, D. C. H., Ilbery, B., Maye, D.
    Progress in Human Geography, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 22-40
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Evaluating British railway poster advertising: the London and North Eastern Railway between the wars

    Watts, D. C. H.
    Journal of Transport History, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 23-56
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • On the Causes of British Railway Nationalisation: A Re-examination of the Causes, 1866-1921

    Watts, D. C. H.
    Contemporary British History, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1-38
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

Refine

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Conferences

Contributions to Journals

Other Contributions