Anna Sofia Salonen is a doctor of theology and a postdoctoral researcher in the Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences. Her research is positioned at the intersection of theology, sociology and the social scientific study of religion and combines a wide array of issues related to consumption, care, welfare and ethics. Food has been a persistent theme in her academic work. In her doctoral dissertation and in related publications, she has studied food consumption mainly in the context of poverty and deprivation. Recently, she has moved further with this research interest by focusing on food excess and affluence in addition to scarcity, yet acknowledging that these are not separate issues but rather two sides of the same coin. In her current research project, she explores the content and construction of ethical lives of ordinary people by asking what they consider to be moderate with regards to food consumption and by analyzing how they construct these views. Understanding the ethics of ordinary food consumption is essential in a society where food system routinely produces more food than we are able to consume and where people are constantly invited to exhibit their identity, personality and values through food choices.

Her recent publications include the following:
Salonen Anna Sofia, Ohisalo Maria, Laihiala Tuomo (2018) Undeserving, disadvantaged, disregarded: Three viewpoints of charity food aid recipients in Finland. International journal of environmental research and public health 15 (12), 2896. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2896
Salonen Anna Sofia. (2018) Living and dealing with food in an affluent society—A case for the study of lived (non)religion. Religions 2018, 9 (10), 306. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/10/306
Salonen Anna Sofia. (2018). Religion, poverty and abundance. (A research comment). Palgrave Communications 4. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0086-8