The political economy of alternative trade: Social and environmental certification in the South African wine industry

Despite recent critical analyses of the nature and impacts of social and environmental certification, the increasingly complex landscape of voluntary, industry and third-party codes and certification processes that have emerged in specific sectors is poorly understood. In particular, little is known about the potential threats posed by an increasingly complex and contested ‘ethical’ landscape in undermining radical initiatives designed to bring about improvements to material and social well-being. In response, this paper explores the current dynamics of social and environmental certification in the South African wine industry. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK and Western Cape, the paper analyses the overlapping and sometimes conflictual processes of social and environmental certification, and the role of key drivers in establishing them within the wine industry. It explores whether attempts to capture a portion of the expanding market for ‘ethical’ wines and the expansion of corporate interests in ‘responsibility’ and ‘ethics’ work to depoliticize the meaning and nature of transformation. The implications of the findings are that, in the absence of legislative requirements to transform the wine industry, social codes and civic conventions are likely to remain significant, but that greater understanding is required of the different meanings and outcomes of transformation and empowerment being deployed within the industry. The paper concludes that a significant problem facing transformation and alternative trade in the wine industry, and more broadly, lies in the growing gap between the abstract ethical discourse of corporate actors, on the one hand, and the moral experience of workers on the other.     

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.     

Impartiality,friendship-networks and voting behavior: Evidence from voting patterns in the Eurovision Song Contest

What is the extent to which a country's political institutions impact aggregate voting behavior in a comparative perspective? More specifically, are citizens in some countries more inclined vote on the basis of ‘quality’ or ‘merit’ over ‘friendship’ or ‘loyalty’, and if so, why? This paper seeks to address how the extent to which a country's political institutions are impartial (treats all citizens equally, free from corruption, strong rule of law) impact aggregate citizen behavior. When political institutions are more (less) impartial, success in society is more often on the basis of merit (patrimonial ties). This test cases is voting in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) from 1975 to 2012 among pairs and blocs of ‘voting friends’. The theory elucidates that given that certain pairs or blocs exhibit systematic voting bias for one another over time, the bias will be considerably less among impartial states than those with highly partial institutions. Using several measures of ‘friendship’, I find strong empirical evidence for this claim, even when controlling for myriad alternative factors and taking into account various voting regimes. The analysis gives us new insights on how political institutions condition aggregate citizen behavior in general and that although there is much bias in ESC voting, not all bias is equal among friend-countries.     

Beyond bifurcation: Examining the conventions of organic agriculture in New Zealand

The last 10 years have witnessed numerous attempts to evaluate the merits of new theoretical approaches – ranging from Actor Network Theory to ‘post-structural’ Political Economy and inhabiting a ‘post-Political Economy’ theoretical space – to the explanation of global agricultural change. This article examines Convention Theory (CT) as one such alternative approach, assessing its potential in the context of ongoing change within commercial organic agriculture in New Zealand. More specifically, CT is used to expose the insufficiency of recent ideas of conventionalisation and bifurcation, both reflecting more traditional Political Economic approaches, as explanatory concepts for the emerging condition of the New Zealand organic sector. In this paper, the concept of worlds of justification as developed in CT is utilised to address the emerging complexity of organic production. While farmers supplying a more diversified domestic market can be distinguished from those supplying export markets, an exclusive focus on such distinctions ignores the influential role of extra-economic factors on the viability of organic production systems. Thus, in addition to what are classified as market and industrial worlds in CT, the paper addresses aspects of civic, green, domestic, inspired and renown worlds. Producers' selections of organic certification organisations are used to demonstrate the interaction of these worlds in the development of the organic sector in New Zealand. The article concludes with the imperative to move ‘beyond bifurcation’ and acknowledge the greater complexity of negotiated outcomes that might be achieved from a CT perspective than from existing political economy-derived models like conventionalisation and bifurcation.     

The voice of troubled youth: Children's and adolescents' ideas on helpful elements of care

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study in a Flemish centre for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioural disorders. The aim of this study was twofold. First, we wanted to examine how youth reflect on their own behaviour and that of their peers'. Secondly, we wanted to know what, according to the youth, are the most significant helpful elements of treatment. Analysis shows a continuum of negative behaviour, ranging from relatively ‘normal’ disruptive behaviour such as arguing, up to serious disruptive behaviour such as physical aggression. This behaviour has a negative influence on the climate of the organization. ‘Availability of staff’, ‘nearness of staff’, ‘a clear set of rules and boundaries’, and ‘some time on my own/some alone time’ are perceived as helpful elements of treatment. ‘Strictness’, ‘not listening’, and ‘inappropriate staff attitudes and interventions’ are perceived as counterproductive elements of treatment. Results are discussed and recommendations both on the orthopedagogical as well as on the scientific level are formulated.     

Contested boundaries,contested places: The Natura 2000 network in Ireland

Where to draw the boundary line between ‘nature’ and ‘society’ has perplexed sociologists, ecologists and geographers through the ages. This paper was inspired by environmental sociologist, Alan Irwin, who suggests that we shift our focus from asking ‘where to draw the line’ between what is considered ‘natural’ and ‘social’ to exploring the ‘very process of line-drawing’ as it occurs within specific socio-ecological contexts (Irwin, 2001). Nature conservation initiatives in the form of “protected areas” provide remarkable insights into attempts to devise and manage conceptual and spatial-geographic boundaries between nature and society. Here, I discuss Ireland’s contribution to the Natura 2000 network of protected ecological sites. I show how line-drawing in Natura 2000, from EU right down to local levels, is a highly contingent, contested and uncertain process; how both ‘nature’ and ‘society’ can frustrate attempts to draw and maintain these boundaries and the conflicts, uncertainties and dilemmas thrown up in the process. The paper ends by considering the extent to which this “boundary-work” analysis provides an insightful, though incomplete picture of the experiences of and challenges posed by Natura 2000 on-the ground, while posing some more philosophical questions about nature–society boundaries and the challenges they pose to nature conservationism.     

Characterising rural businesses – Tales from the paperman

A case study of a self-termed ‘rural business’ is used to deconstruct the concept of a rural business and shed light on specific features of ‘operating in a rural area’ and ‘serving a rural population’. Alongside ‘selling a rural product’, the paper claims that these make up three parameters for categorising rural businesses. Highlighting these unique or niche features of a rural business makes is possible to recognise values that extend beyond financial measures. As such, this research provides a mechanism to support rural policy aimed at delivering both economic and community development objectives.     

Local rural product as a ‘relic’ spatial strategy in globalised rural spaces: Evidence from County Clare (Ireland)

Using a case study from County Clare (Ireland), this study critically analyses notions of ‘local’ rural production. It investigates where rural businesses source the different components of their products and how these interrelate with the locality, how local businesses use the notion of ‘local’ in their product branding, and what the socio-economic and political constraints and opportunities are for businesses seeking to foreground the ‘local’ in their business marketing. Echoing critical studies on the notion and use of ‘local’ in rural product branding (e.g. Burnett and Danson, 2004; Ilbery and Maye's; Feagan, 2007; Darby et al., 2008; Giovannucci et al., 2010), we argue that even remote rural areas such as County Clare in western Ireland have become so embedded in globalised economic and decision-making pathways that the ‘local’ in rural product branding only remains ‘local’ as a relic process associated with past localized rural production activities.     

Building alternative agri-food networks: Certification,embeddedness and agri-environmental governance

This paper examines the role of certification in alternative agri-food networks (AAFNs), which are in the process of building markets for their produce outside conventional supply chains. Drawing upon recent writing on ‘embeddedness’, we argue that certification provides an important focus for exploring the relationship and tensions between horizontal and vertical dimensions of embedding processes, and thereby understanding the complexities of agri-environmental governance. Through a case study of a group of beef farmers in south-eastern Australia, we investigate how one type of process-based certification—Environmental Management Systems (EMSs)—was used as the basis for constructing an AAFN and selling a premium environmentally certified product. The case study shows that environmental certification had mixed results for this AAFN. For instance, while it represented a useful means of building consumer trust, considerable time and effort was required by producers to target and build a market for the certified product. Producers initially had little to gain financially from a third-party-certified EMS. However, despite the current lack of broad consumer demand for non-organic environmentally certified products, the farmers we interviewed did not reject the EMS process entirely—they used it to realise a range of non-monetary personal and community benefits. We conclude that certification can be a useful strategy for those AAFNs in the process of expanding beyond direct marketing. Nevertheless, the lack of consumer understanding and demand means that certification may be adapted and combined with other producer strategies to meet personal and societal expectations regarding land stewardship.     

An analysis of corporate environmental responsibility on the global corporate Web sites and their dialogic principles

This study investigated how corporations use their Web sites as a way of helping to build corporate environmental responsibility. A content analysis of 2008 Fortune Global corporate Web sites compared environmental concerns and the use of dialogic principles across three regions (i.e., Asia, Europe, and North America). Results show that about 71% of Web sites have a stand-alone environmental menu as a central location for environmental information, and that Europe is the highest, followed by North America and Asia. The environmental concerns of ‘resources/waste management’ and ‘climate changes’ are more commonly highlighted than are ‘ecosystem’ and ‘environmental governance.’ Furthermore, most Web sites do not fully employ dialogic features, regardless of region.     

Chilling out in ‘cosmopolitan country’: Urban/rural hybridity and the construction of Daylesford as a ‘lesbian and gay rural idyll’

This paper advances scholarship on ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’. A growing literature examines how ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’ are not only produced in opposition to the urban, but are themselves urban constructs. We extend these contentions by exploring the processes of idyllisation suffusing lesbian and gay festival tourism in Daylesford, a town in non-metropolitan Victoria, Australia. We find that Daylesford’s idyllisation by the lesbian and gay tourism industry blurs the urban/rural binary, and instead hybridises rurality and urbanity in the tourism images and practices of ‘cosmopolitan country’ associated with the town. Research findings from Daylesford are analysed to examine how the dynamics of tourism marketing and festival attendance help produce and articulate this hybrid variant of the ‘lesbian and gay rural idyll’. We utilise two sets of mostly qualitative data for this inquiry: travel commentaries in the news media, and a survey conducted in Daylesford at the 2006 ChillOut Festival, Australia’s largest lesbian and gay rural festival.     

Postman Pat and me: Everyday encounters with an icon of idyllic rurality

It is, by now, well accepted that those of us who live with/in contemporary Anglocentric popular culture are presented, from birth, with manifold icons and imaginings of the English countryside as idyllic. Indeed, the idea that, through such popular representations, we encounter and ‘consume’ this sense of ‘rural idyll’ – and a particular, underlying, ideologically laden set of idea(l)s – has been well rehearsed. However, this paper reflects upon a question which has hitherto been often overlooked: what is the (practical, tangible) nature of this ‘consumption’? Approaching this question, the paper re-presents a succession of encounters with one icon of idyllic rurality: Postman Pat. In so doing, the paper develops an understanding of some complex – and frequently banal, odd, happenstance, taken-for-granted – happenings and practices which are fundamentally part of the ‘consumption’ of ‘rural idyll’.     

Home sweet home: The emotional construction of places

The social sciences have recently shown a revival of interest in space and place. In this “spatial turn” the place is seen as a “place-in-process” (Thrift, 2008) and as the emergent result of constant re-involvement processes based on the continuous re-definition and re-construction of its meaning. Moreover, elderly people's homes have acquired a renewed importance in the wake of an aging in place strategy in social and health policies. This study describes the processes of situatedness of place that occur during the widowhood. Involving ten older widows, our analysis identifies four distinct processes in the construction of the situated meaning of a place: ‘Heart displacement’, ‘The showcase of the self’, ‘Refuge’ and ‘Introjection of external spaces’.     

The challenge of creating ‘alternative’ images of ageing: Lessons from a project with older women

This article analyses two participatory projects designed to engage older women in the creation of new imagery of old age. While it was hoped that this imagery would offer an ‘alternative’ to mainstream depictions or indeed offer older women a presence amidst the much noted absence of images of older women, the brief left it open to the professional photographers recruited to the project and to the participants themselves to direct the representations. In recent years, critical gerontologists have repeatedly called for artistic challenges to conventional ways of imaging old age. By working with two groups of older women, the intention was that ‘ordinary’ older women (non-celebrity, non-artist) could be included in that challenge and imagery created which would show the lives of older women honestly. In the case of the two projects described here, professional photographers were enlisted to give visual form to the women's views on ageing and their lives as older women and deliver ‘exhibition quality’ images. Important factors in determining the types of images produced included the artistic style and preferences of the photographers and their respective ages, both of which are explored here. In-depth analysis of some of the images produced shows that while they did not succumb to the usual ‘heroes of ageing’/‘bodily decline’ binary (Featherstone & Hepworth, 2005), they did not escape other dualistic categorisations. The images can be broadly viewed as nostalgic/melancholic or humorously carnivalesque. This finding is evidence of how difficult it is to create ‘alternative’ images of older women which defy established modes of categorisation.     

Managing politics and storytelling: Meeting the challenge of upgrading informal housing in South Africa

Many in situ upgrade projects in developing countries fail. I tell the story of how one in South Africa (Oukasie) succeeded, both in the eyes of residents as well as the wider development community. I noticed that the residents of Oukasie managed to accomplish far more than other similar upgrades within the same timespan. Within just three years, from being ‘illegal’ and on the bucket sewage system, all households had their own water connection and toilet as well as access to a range of community facilities. The leadership of the community were getting job offers from the private-sector, and the former ‘whites-only’ town of Brits was beginning to play an integral part in Oukasie's development. I wanted to understand how this was all possible. My paper addresses this question and shows how, through using politics (e.g. political tactics and links to politicians) and storytelling, the community built a much more successful project than otherwise would have been the case. Throughout this paper I use Oukasie as a ‘model’ to demonstrate that successful in-situ upgrading is both feasible and desirable in the South African context, given the scarcity of government resources relative to the housing backlog. Oukasie, thus, becomes a vehicle for discussing a broader range of issues which are relevant to development projects in general and in situ upgrade projects in particular.     

‘The Rotten Banana’ fires back: The story of a Danish discourse of inclusive rurality in the making

The popularity of a particular term – the Rotten Banana – has paralleled the one-sided centralisation of public services since the Danish Municipal Reform of 2007. The Rotten Banana denotes peripheral Denmark, which takes a geographically curved form that resembles a banana, and it symbolises the belief that rural areas are backward and (too) costly. This article shows how the negative connotations of rural areas have come to outweigh the positive ones and to legitimise liberal visions of the ‘sustainable’ welfare state. Whereas previous studies on the perceptions of rural dwellers have focused on the discourses of rurality that produce rural outsiders, this article builds on the work of de Certeau and of Laclau and Mouffe. Based on both quantitative and qualitative data, the study shows how, in Denmark, negative connotations and centralisation have together spurred a new and political mobilisation in many parts of the ‘banana’. Through skilful ‘consumption’, rural dwellers have adapted the alienating liberalist ‘logic of equivalence’ to their own use and produced a ‘logic of difference’, thus challenging the predominant political discourse of rurality. As a result, the Danish Liberal government was forced to introduce a new and more inclusive rural policy in September of 2010 and grant rural dwellers a political voice in parliament.     

Moving from sustainable management to sustainable governance of natural resources: The role of social learning processes in rural India,Bolivia and Mali

The present paper discusses a conceptual, methodological and practical framework within which the limitations of the conventional notion of natural resource management (NRM) can be overcome. NRM is understood as the application of scientific ecological knowledge to resource management. By including a consideration of the normative imperatives that arise from scientific ecological knowledge and submitting them to public scrutiny, ‘sustainable management of natural resources’ can be recontextualised as ‘sustainable governance of natural resources’. This in turn makes it possible to place the politically neutralising discourse of ‘management’ in a space for wider societal debate, in which the different actors involved can deliberate and negotiate the norms, rules and power relations related to natural resource use and sustainable development. The transformation of sustainable management into sustainable governance of natural resources can be conceptualised as a social learning process involving scientists, experts, politicians and local actors, and their corresponding scientific and non-scientific knowledges. The social learning process is the result of what Habermas has described as ‘communicative action’, in contrast to ‘strategic action’. Sustainable governance of natural resources thus requires a new space for communicative action aiming at shared, intersubjectively validated definitions of actual situations and the goals and means required for transforming current norms, rules and power relations in order to achieve sustainable development. Case studies from rural India, Bolivia and Mali explore the potentials and limitations for broadening communicative action through an intensification of social learning processes at the interface of local and external knowledge. Key factors that enable or hinder the transformation of sustainable management into sustainable governance of natural resources through social learning processes and communicative action are discussed.     

Voluntarism as a mediator of the experience of growing old in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places

This paper examines voluntarism as a response to the challenges faced by people growing old in rural communities that are themselves being transformed in fundamental ways, both socially and demographically. Informed by evolving theorisations within the rural aging and geographies of voluntarism literatures, we outline the key processes in space and consequent impacts in place that have affected the experience of growing old in rural communities. We identify the changes in service systems that have led to concerns about ‘vulnerable people in vulnerable places’ and explore this idea in regional contexts ranging from the agricultural heartland to the resource hinterland of Canada. We argue that a distinction needs to be made between the impacts of long and short cycles of change flowing across rural space and attention paid to voluntarism as a critical process at the intersection of broad shifts in service and settlement systems and particular changes in rural communities. Specifically, we suggest that the ‘local dynamics of voluntarism’ involving the activities of voluntary organisations, community groups and individual volunteers in particular communities can be understood, at once, as a ‘barometer of change’, a ‘mechanism of adjustment’ and a ‘space of resistance’, and we draw on recent case studies of rural voluntarism to illustrate this three-part distinction. In considering the transformative potential of voluntarism for the experience of aging in place, our findings suggest that public discourse, as reflected in media coverage, tends to romanticise voluntarism at the expense of a more nuanced and critical appreciation of its importance to the future of aging rural communities and their elderly residents. The research raises timely questions about academic-versus-popular conceptions of aging in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places.