Understanding and (dis)trusting food assurance schemes: Consumer confidence and the ‘knowledge fix’

This paper uses evidence from focus groups with consumers in England to consider how consumers understand and evaluate a range of proxies or intermediary organisations that offer assurance about food and consumer products, particularly voluntary certification schemes. This addresses the current concern in developed economies about providing information in order to reconnect consumers with food producers and to support moves towards more local, fairly traded and sustainable production. However, we show that such a ‘knowledge fix’ approach of providing information may not reconnect consumers so easily. Participants found it particularly difficult to work out what certification involved and what kinds of organisations were providing assurance. They built vernacular typologies and comparative judgements that did not necessarily identify or prioritise ‘independent’ third-party certification as the gold standard, not least because of the practical difficulties of monitoring complex supply chains, and expressed confusion and scepticism about how well food assurance schemes could work in practice. Our results therefore problematise the knowledge fix urged in the literature and emphasise instead the need to better understand how consumers make sense of assurance information in different contexts.     

Fair Trade: Social regulation in global food markets

This article analyzes the theoretical and empirical parameters of social regulation in contemporary global food markets, focusing on the rapidly expanding Fair Trade initiative. Fair Trade seeks to transform North/South relations by fostering ethical consumption, producer empowerment, and certified commodity sales. This initiative joins an array of labor and environmental standard and certification systems which are often conceptualized as “private regulations” since they depend on the voluntary participation of firms. I argue that these new institutional arrangements are better understood as “social regulations” since they operate beyond the traditional bounds of private and public (corporate and state) domains and are animated by individual and collective actors. In the case of Fair Trade, I illuminate how relational and civic values are embedded in economic practices and institutions and how new quality assessments are promoted as much by social movement groups and loosely aligned consumers and producers as they are by market forces. This initiative's recent commercial success has deepened price competition and buyer control and eroded its traditional peasant base, yet it has simultaneously created new openings for progressive politics. The study reveals the complex and contested nature of social regulation in the global food market as movement efforts move beyond critique to institution building.     

The spaces and ethics of organic food

Initial assessments of the potential for organic food systems have offered an optimistic interpretation of the progressive political and ethical characteristics involved. This positive gloss has prompted a stream of critique emphasising the need to explore the ambiguities and disconnections inherent therein. In this paper, we consider the case of Riverford Organic Vegetables,¹ arguably the largest supplier of organic vegetables in the UK, and suggest that existing debates assume too much about the “goods” and “rights” of organic food and leave important questions about the spaces and ethics of organic food. We argue that, in the case of Riverford, the space of organic food production and distribution is neither the small, local, counter-cultural farm nor the large, transnational, corporate firm. Rather, simultaneously, the spaces of organic food production and distribution are the national network, the regional distribution system and the local farm. In addition, in the case of Riverford, the ethics of organic food exhibit few grand designs (of environmental sustainability, for example). Rather, the ethics of organic food are best characterised as: ordinary, since they relate to concerns about taste, value for money, care within the family and so on; diverse, since multiple practices steer the production and distribution of organic food; and graspable, in that both vegetables and box have material and symbolic presence for consumers.     

The quality of sustainability: Agroecological partnerships and the geographic branding of California winegrapes

Quality and sustainability are both socially constructed, ambiguous terms, but they have not been heretofore linked in the rural studies literature. The “quality turn” has received particular attention from researchers for its potential to organize linkages among various forces in agrofood systems, providing more income to producers by appealing to affluent, reflexive consumers. A distinct line of rural research has attended to the challenge of agro-environmental pollution and regulation, but this research trajectory has been subsumed under the broader paradigm of sustainability. This article seeks to contribute to discussions about quality in the agrofood sector by analyzing the potential of fusing rural resource protection practices with place-based marketing of enhanced quality, drawing from an empirical study of the California winegrape industry. In several California commodities, agroecological partnerships are becoming the chief vehicle for extending sustainable agricultural practices. California's winegrape farmers have undertaken more partnerships to greater effect than those of any other US crop, and they are now discursively linking their sustainable farming practices, environmental quality, and wine quality. This marks a new linkage of two heretofore discrete social imaginaries. This article argues that “quality” is a term that can conceptually link increasing consumer demand for differentiated product taste with increasing regulatory pressure for environmental protection. Synergistic benefits from such a linkage have the potential to strengthen rural development initiatives. Making progress toward sustainability requires collective action on the part of producers, and in some commodities, may mesh well with efforts to enhance foodstuff quality.     

Weaving new retail and consumer landscapes in the Scottish Borders

New retail locations and formats and changing consumer capabilities and behaviours (including “switching”) have encouraged “outshopping” from rural to urban areas. Rural areas have been suffering from a decline in the provision of services, including retailing. One “solution” has been the strengthening of market towns in rural areas by the development of new major retail stores. The effects of this are perhaps not fully understood, particularly where the rural area comprises a network of towns rather than a single centre. Three comparable consumer surveys (1988, 1998, 2004) of shopping behaviour in the Scottish Borders are analysed. Consumer place and store switching data are used to examine the impact of new retail opportunities on shopping patterns. Two different switching strands are identified: clawback and redistribution. Redistribution within the rural network is a new finding.     

Negative impact induced by foreign workers: Evidence in Malaysian construction sector

Though foreign workers served to overcome the labor shortage in the Malaysian construction market, over-dependence on foreign workers and the negative impacts induced have become a serious social problem. The aims of this research are to identify those negative impacts induced by foreign workers in the Malaysian construction market and to determine strategies in minimizing these negative impacts. Data were collected through a structured interview and survey. The questionnaires were delegated to professionals in construction projects who have direct contacts with foreign workers. Only respondents from those companies registered under the CIDB grade G7 were chosen for this survey. There were 117 sets of questionnaires completed and analyzed through the structured interviews. The three principal factors attracting foreign workers to the Malaysian construction market are “Preference of the employers”, “Lifestyle and working conditions”, and “Unattractiveness of the career pathway”. The main negative impacts induced by foreign workers are “Over-dependence on foreign workers”, “Increment in criminal activities or social problems”, and “Existence of illegal workers”. This research proposes that strategies such as “Attract local workers into the construction industry”, “Industrialized Building Systems”, “Eliminate illegal migration”, and “Improve governance structure” would be successful in minimizing negative impacts induced by foreign workers.     

Romancing Singapore: When yesterday's success becomes today's challenge

When Singapore gained independence in 1965, its policies were “strongly anti-natalist” as the government feared that population growth could strain its limited resources and hinder economic development. National campaigns were successfully used for population control and within a decade birth rates fell so much that the country became a victim of its own success. Fearing a loss in replacement of the population, the government has adopted a rather aggressively “pro-natalist” policy. In addition to cash grants and tax rebates to encourage births, public-education campaigns have promoted positive attitudes towards marriage, children and family life including Romancing Singapore, a month-long campaign in February 2003.     

Formation et calcul des prix : le travail de tarification dans la grande distribution

Sociologists have recently been rasing questions about how prices are set in various markets. Although their seminal studies have explained the many processes and variables that come into play, they do not enable us to describe the concrete procedures whereby prices are actually calculated. This empirical case study explores the sophisticated methods of calculating the prices of products distributed in a French retail hypermarket chain. Three major conclusions are drawn. First of all, the law enters into the delimitation of the “space” for calculating the prices that distributors set for selling to consumers. Secondly, the choice of a procedure for performing the calculation affects the balance of power between marketing professionals in the struggle to control their shares in the value. Thirdly, the “consumer sale price” does not result directly either from the relation between supply and demand or from micronegotiations between suppliers and distributors. Instead, it tends to ensue from the linkage between several, heterogenous “spaces” of calculation. This study describes the actors, tools and know-how involved in defining these spaces.     

Brèves réflexions sur la reconnaissance d'un « droit à la différence alimentaire » dans le commerce international

We repeatedly hear that the World Trade Organization's rules (modified in 1994 to reinforce the principle of worldwide free trade) tend to inevitably uniformize culture in food, among other things. Whether in the case of bovine growth hormones or genetically modified organisms, WTO rules will ultimately impose a single food model as a universal reference mark. In France, these ideas crop up in talk about malbouffe (bad eating) and calls for a return to democratic choices or for instituting a fundamental “right” to freely choose food habits. Even though such talk has sometimes confused the issues, it has shed light on how the food question is presented in international trade. Increasingly, the issue is to defend national or regional values, or even choices about the type of society. What place do WTO rules reserve for these values ? Under what conditions can such values justify exemptions from free-trade rules and, ultimately, the maintenance of a “right to food differences”? As the European Union is thoroughly changing food legislation in line with its own concepts - the precautionary principle, the plurality and independence of procedures for evaluating foodstuffs, the well-being of animals, etc. - the answers provided to the foregoing questions will be decisive. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

L’accountability à l’épreuve des incertitudes : le mandat des acheteurs d’énergie

Based on a survey of energy buyers in big industries, this article inquires into the different ways of explaining the actions they perform in situations of high, uncontrolled uncertainty. Describing energy buyers’ activities, the uncertainties and contradictions affecting them, shows how hard it is to explain them, make them visible or justify the decisions made. Energy buyers develop two forms of “accountability”: they claim to have been granted decision-making powers and ask to be evaluated on the basis of their results; or else they “socialize” their activities by involving corporate managers in decision-making. It is argued that “accountability” is stabilized in line with a collective learning process where the experience of uncertainty has a key place.     

Violent children and structural violence: Re-signaling ‘RAD Kids’ to inform the social work professions

This article critically examines representations of children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, or “RAD Kids”, and their construction as dangerous subjects. Based on ethnographic research within attachment therapy clinics, and among adoptive families, social workers, and medical professionals in the U.S. and Russia, the author suggests that notions of danger associated with “RAD Kids” actually reflect a social anxiety about the contexts of structural violence in which we are attempting to build families and raise children at the turn of the 21st century. The author culturally and historically contextualizes the signaling of “RAD Kids” as violent within literature on moral panics over children and youth. She explores how these representations function as an attempt to “resignal” public anxieties about the difficulties associated with building families through adoption, and especially, the adoption of formerly institutionalized children. The article provides a model for thinking about complex relationships between children, pathology, and power to inform the social work professions, and particularly practice with children diagnosed with RAD.     

Acceptance of democracy and public relations: Attitudes in a transitional country

The study explores the relationship between acceptance of democracy and opinions about public communication used by the private sector in television newscasts in Croatia, a country transitioning to democracy. A survey administered to students at a large University in Zagreb found inconsistent responses to the items that measured acceptance of democracy, indicating that young Croatians in the study may still be in a political “gray zone” and may not have a full understanding of the precepts of democracy. However, there was a positive correlation between opinions about public relations media practices and acceptance of democracy. The study suggests that it is not enough to use a theoretical framework of global public relations that characterizes a country as a democracy or not, but rather to recognize that democratization is a process. Many people in transitional societies may be closer on the continuum to traditional communist points of view than to newer democratic views; such understanding can help provide a theoretical understanding of transitional public relations.     

Feminist Heuristics: Transforming the Foundation of Food Quality and Safety Assurance Systems*

Food safety and quality assurance systems have emerged as a key mechanism of food governance in recent years and are also popular among alternative agrofood movements, such as the organic and fair trade movements. Rural sociologists have identified many problems with existing systems, including corporate cooptation, the marginalization of small producers, and the depoliticization of consumer consciousness. Tackling these problems requires an epistemological shift. This article argues that the existing systems are based on positivist epistemology and calls for a feminist intervention. To show a concrete example of a feminist departure from the conventional assurance systems, I look at the case of a Japanese women's food cooperative and analyze its unique system, comparing it to its conventional counterpart, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). Feminist epistemology can change assurance systems from being closed, nondiscriminatory, and technical to being participatory, differentiated, and normative.     

L’Europe sociale : créativité institutionnelle communautaire et réalités nationales

“Social Europe” has been constructed following 50 years of EEC and EU policy-making, which has gradually extricated social questions from a pure rationale of economic integration in order to turn it into a lever for European political integration. The theoretical and disciplinary viewpoints are presented that, together, help us better understand the processes at work. Attention is drawn to three of them. First of all, the evolutionary process of building the EU accounts both for the differences between social Europe and national welfare systems, and for an ongoing process of institutional creation through an accumulation of EU legal achievements (acquis). Secondly, the expansion of the EU to twelve new member states lacking robust labor relation systems, along with globalization, represents a challenge for the future of the “European social model”. Finally, social Europe has not yet undergone an assessment. Problems arise owing to the short shrift given by treaties to questions of social legislation or redistribution, but the “Europeanization of national policies” apparently opens a way toward overcoming these obstacles.     

Canadian Leapfrog: From Regulating Charitable Fundraising to Co-Regulating Good Governance

The regulation of charitable fundraising is no longer just about the regulation of fundraising but about good governance, and increasingly involves co-regulatory regimes which blend elements of self- and state regulation. Canada??s charitable sector has undertaken a bold experiment in creating a comprehensive certification system for good governance, including fundraising, which reframes the target of regulation from the informed donor to the well-performing charity and has the ambitious goal of building a community of practice for self-improvement. At the same time, the federal government has introduced new guidance on fundraising that not only outlines accepted cost to revenue ratios but also specifies standards of good governance. It is an open question as to whether this new self- and state regulation will remain as dual systems or evolve into a hybrid co-regulatory regime in which government integrates sector certification into its own risk management.     

Comment se font les administrations : analyser des activités administratives constituantes

Between studies in historical sociology on changes in public administrations and microsociological analyses of the ordinary work done by civil servants, an intermediate perspective is advocated, one centered on “constituent administrative activities”. Following a panorama of the varied researches on public administrations, the proposal is made to focus on the arrangements that shape administrations and form their essential operations. Recruitment, personnel evaluation, the division of labor, the restructuring of hierarchies and the activities of keeping written records and statistics (writing and counting) should be the subjects of study. When placed in their historical and social contexts, they help us better understand how public administrations last and change. Discussing the scale of analysis and making comparisons over time and in space, this article presents the other contributions to this special issue. Less linear approaches are suggested for analyzing the historical processes of the “bureaucratization” and “managerialization” of administrative systems.     

Les apories de la solidarité familiale Contribution à la sociologie des configurations de justice entre les familles et l’État, dans le cas français

Despite its many meanings, “solidarity” has once again become current in French to describe macro as well as microsocial relations. Social relations in and outside the family have not always been understood as instances of solidarity. But is this solidarity the same as the one established by the welfare state? Forms of family solidarity that have risen in esteem over the past two decades are “deconstructed”. The conditions for family solidarity are examined; and conceptual paradoxes, described. This approach suggests that family solidarity, as this concept is normally used, mixes together several systems of justice that should be clearly distinguished, especially if we want to put this phrase to a judicious social use.     

Le travail enseignant en lycée professionnel et ses paradoxes

The paradoxes in the work of teaching in French vocational education stem from the “symbolic closure” of these secondary schools. The latter, given the mass enrollment in general secondary schools, receive students marked by their failure in middle school. This has created a distance with the students' social and family environment and with firms, even though the latter are supposed to be the destination where these students are bound. The work of these teachers is strongly marked by “subjective ordeals” related to their subordinate position in the school system, to a concern for keeping peace in the schools and to doubts about integrating students in the world of work. Might the work of these teachers not lead paradoxically to reasserting the “weight of the educational form” by including therein actions that are supposed to help students “mature” and develop an “appropriate school identity”? In this case, the purpose of this work is the academic socialization and rehabilitation of young people as much as their vocational training as such.     

The hidden curriculum of youth care interventions—A case study

Themes such as “effectiveness” and “evidence-based practice” currently dominate debates about the professional care of children and youth. Notwithstanding the importance of these themes, this rather narrow focus may leave the values and ideals underlying youth care interventions undiscussed. In this article we will present our case study of EQUIP as an example of the role of this “hidden curriculum” in youth care interventions. Qualitative research has been conducted, consisting of content analysis of documents, interviews and observations. For the analysis an existing theory on the content and structure of values is used (Schwartz, 1992). The results show that there are distinct differences in the way moral behavior is defined in a Dutch and American “version” of EQUIP. The results also suggest that a difference in value perspective might be related to the effectiveness of the program.     

Exponential random graph models of preschool affiliative networks

Exponential random graph models were used to assess the relevance of reciprocity, popularity, transitivity controlling for effects based upon ego and alter sex, and sex homophily, on the formation of affiliative ties in 19 Portuguese preschool peer groups. The number of times two children were recorded as nearest neighbors in focal samples was used as an indicator of the relationship's strength. Independent parameter estimates of the different models (one for each group) were summarized, separately for the three age groups (“3-year-olds”, “4-year-olds” and “5-year-olds”) using a multi-level approach to meta-analysis. Results showed that affiliative ties between children were sex segregated, highly reciprocal, more likely to be directed to a restricted number of children and with a tendency to create transitive triads. The structural processes underlying the formation of affiliative ties were quite stable between classrooms.