Hi everyone,
I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the blog’s content and by blog as a method. I’m with those who find greater potential to incite in conversation and I hope that happens in Vegas. Anyway, definitely, supporting Julie and others’ posts, Ian, you should be head chef (good luck!—often what I feel I need when cooking or writing). I like the idea of conveying some of the multiplicity of interpretations in a rational form that need not preserve the actual text we’ve written. Ian has already committed to not silencing, hasn’t he? With others, I’d also suggest rather than conclusions, connections that generate further inventiveness (paraphrasing Elizabeth Grosz)—or that unsettle as Jean says.
More themes:
1. Politics:
What can be generated through the friction created when the perspective that alternative food is neoliberal biopolitics meets the idea of a politics of encounter through taste etc.? The blog seems to be often about this tension.
2. Bodies—taste,health, guts, life.
Here all the tangles of animals, aesthetics, people, yeast (Bobrow-Strain 2008), prions, exchanges, enteric disorders, size.
Cutting across both is identity/difference and food. More ways to theorize these in relation since Ian’s mixing paper.
Cutting across both is hunger: Early on Mimi mentioned the eating of dirt cakes sold in Haiti. An article I read somewhere said people were not able to afford even these,much less food without dirt in it.
Bobrow-Strain, A. (2008) Trouble with Microbes: Industry, Public Health, and the Politics of Biosafety in Turn-of-the-Century America, paper presented in the session Experimentation & Engineering: Materialities Between the Processual and the Aleatory II, AAG, Boston.
Rachel
Monday, September 22, 2008
Writing the paper: a collaboration? (archived)
Now it's time for me/us to try to turn the contents of this blog into a 7,000 word paper: 'Geographies of food: afters' which will need to be submitted to Progress in Human Geography in the next 6-8 weeks.
What follows is for only those who have contributed below, the co-authors of this review: Lucius Hallett, Mimi Sheller, David Nally, Rachel Slocum, Louise Crewe, Alison Hulme, Julie Guthman, Kersty Hobson, Damian Maye, Heike Henderson, Emma Roe, Henry Buller, Mike Goodman, Paul Kingsbury, Andrew Murphy, Jean Duruz, Charlie Mather, Allison Hayes-Conroy, Jessica Hayes-Conroy, Lisa Tucker, Richard LeHeron, Chris Philo, Heather Putnam and me. (plus one or two people I'm still hoping/expecting to contribute way past the last minute).
Can each of you please do the following?
1) have a look at the post below called 'collaborative writing'.
2) have a look at the post below called 'conclusions'.
3) have a look at the discussion that started in the comments at the end of Allison & Jessica's 'Collective writing...' post.
4) add your comments anywhere (or send to me to post)...
I've set the clock again (2 weeks and counting).
After these new discussions have taken place, I'll put together a draft paper in the way that we agree this should be done, circulate it via email for comments, redraft, circulate and again and submit.
Hope this catches you at a good time. Again, please shoot from the hip, rattle things off, splurge, dump... whatever helps to make this a quick and easy task!
Things are coming together nicely. One step to go. Thanks for all of your efforts so far.
Ian
8th September 2008
(updated 18 September)
What follows is for only those who have contributed below, the co-authors of this review: Lucius Hallett, Mimi Sheller, David Nally, Rachel Slocum, Louise Crewe, Alison Hulme, Julie Guthman, Kersty Hobson, Damian Maye, Heike Henderson, Emma Roe, Henry Buller, Mike Goodman, Paul Kingsbury, Andrew Murphy, Jean Duruz, Charlie Mather, Allison Hayes-Conroy, Jessica Hayes-Conroy, Lisa Tucker, Richard LeHeron, Chris Philo, Heather Putnam and me. (plus one or two people I'm still hoping/expecting to contribute way past the last minute).
Can each of you please do the following?
1) have a look at the post below called 'collaborative writing'.
2) have a look at the post below called 'conclusions'.
3) have a look at the discussion that started in the comments at the end of Allison & Jessica's 'Collective writing...' post.
4) add your comments anywhere (or send to me to post)...
I've set the clock again (2 weeks and counting).
After these new discussions have taken place, I'll put together a draft paper in the way that we agree this should be done, circulate it via email for comments, redraft, circulate and again and submit.
Hope this catches you at a good time. Again, please shoot from the hip, rattle things off, splurge, dump... whatever helps to make this a quick and easy task!
Things are coming together nicely. One step to go. Thanks for all of your efforts so far.
Ian
8th September 2008
(updated 18 September)
From Heike Henderson
Okay, first I feel like I owe an apology, I have definitely done more reading (and thinking!) than writing… maybe because I have been a little bit intimidated, since I am not a food geographer myself. And I also miss the ‘real’ food that can accompany ‘real’ conversations…
Having said that, I have been impressed with the way this writing experiment has created new spaces for imagination and conversation, so yes, despite my limited participation, it definitely has been an interesting experience for me, and an idea that I do intend to take to other venues and topics.
About the question of how to bring it all together: I like the idea of the fragments and snippets. To me that sounds more in line with the different voices in this blog; it does provide the opportunity to incorporate a wide variety of viewpoints and ideas without trying to force them into one big master narrative. With fragments, you can jump from one part to another, there is less of a hierarchical order, and they usual do form (sometimes unexpected) connections. And there is also less of a risk of cannibalizing the vital parts of everybody’s thoughts and research. (Recently, my own research has led me from food studies, or rather the representation of food in literature, to the not always tasty and unsettling topic of cannibalism...)
But enough midnight ramblings, I just wanted to make sure I post something before the “time is up,” so thanks again for the stimulating contributions, and I would love to meet some of you in real life with real food… So any of you who makes it to Boise (Idaho, US), send me a note and I will cook for you!
Having said that, I have been impressed with the way this writing experiment has created new spaces for imagination and conversation, so yes, despite my limited participation, it definitely has been an interesting experience for me, and an idea that I do intend to take to other venues and topics.
About the question of how to bring it all together: I like the idea of the fragments and snippets. To me that sounds more in line with the different voices in this blog; it does provide the opportunity to incorporate a wide variety of viewpoints and ideas without trying to force them into one big master narrative. With fragments, you can jump from one part to another, there is less of a hierarchical order, and they usual do form (sometimes unexpected) connections. And there is also less of a risk of cannibalizing the vital parts of everybody’s thoughts and research. (Recently, my own research has led me from food studies, or rather the representation of food in literature, to the not always tasty and unsettling topic of cannibalism...)
But enough midnight ramblings, I just wanted to make sure I post something before the “time is up,” so thanks again for the stimulating contributions, and I would love to meet some of you in real life with real food… So any of you who makes it to Boise (Idaho, US), send me a note and I will cook for you!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Re: Finishing up (from Julie)
About a year ago, Jessica Hayes-Conroy and I were discussing the politics of the school garden project in Berkeley where she did her recent field research. We were talking about the race politics of such programs, specifically the effect of what I have dubbed as whites wanting to teach others, especially African Americans in the case of at that program, how to eat. While I was thinking about the lack of resonance, she had found a complex mix of rejection, curiosity, joy, humor, and transformation among the African American youth she had observed, spoke with, and gardened with. At the time she was thinking that an interesting approach to writing up her findings would be to take the same findings and write them through multiple lenses. The comment has stuck with me ever since and certainly came to the forefront again in reading and contributing to this blog. Because whereas I like to argue, quite strenuously it seems, about the limits of alternative food politics in terms of political economic transformation or even transformations of individual political subjectivity, when I read others interpretations of the similar phenomenon I often find myself in agreement with them, as well. I was particular sensitive, of course, to Damian's comment about those of us who put alternative food through a neoliberal framework. This is a long way of saying that I am largely in agreement with Jessica and Allison that there's no one conclusion here, because what might be more useful is to hold as similarly valid these multiple interpretations of the same problem/object.
My comments about the collaborative writing follow from this. Although I'm not much of the blogging type (and, frankly, the Sarah Palin phenomenon is sucking up enough of my time), I was struck by the effect of it producing a "real time" conversation with those with whom I do not always agree in our scholarly debates (although I agree with those who would rather have this conversation in the hotel bar . .). It produced an extra degree of civility, care, and engagement. In terms of the real work yet to be done in bringing this conversation into publishable form, I am a fan of the chef model. Pardon the need for ordered rationality (I just can't help myself), but I would organize it around several themes, note where they cross-cut other themes, and then note the leftovers. Rather than refer to them as debates, though, it might be useful to think of them as multiple interpretations that all hold validity.
Note to Mike: Did I accuse you of shouting? If I recall you wrote that ethical commodities "shout" in your workshop paper. As you know, in the person I'm the shouter.
My comments about the collaborative writing follow from this. Although I'm not much of the blogging type (and, frankly, the Sarah Palin phenomenon is sucking up enough of my time), I was struck by the effect of it producing a "real time" conversation with those with whom I do not always agree in our scholarly debates (although I agree with those who would rather have this conversation in the hotel bar . .). It produced an extra degree of civility, care, and engagement. In terms of the real work yet to be done in bringing this conversation into publishable form, I am a fan of the chef model. Pardon the need for ordered rationality (I just can't help myself), but I would organize it around several themes, note where they cross-cut other themes, and then note the leftovers. Rather than refer to them as debates, though, it might be useful to think of them as multiple interpretations that all hold validity.
Note to Mike: Did I accuse you of shouting? If I recall you wrote that ethical commodities "shout" in your workshop paper. As you know, in the person I'm the shouter.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Rational menus?
Hi again,
Thanks Kirsty and Paul for your recent posts - good stuff. All this talk about messiness (in Kirsty's post) makes me realise that my conclusions in the 'emerging themes' post possibly appear a little too rational! Oh well. I was also tempted to propose extending the menu idea from a paper David Bell wrote in 2002 where he produces a menu to describe culinary culture in the city (he organises the themes alphabetically, like a city A-Z). In the afters paper - where we might ditch the starter and main and go straight to afters!? - I was thinking we could present the themes a like that!? Is that a little bit on the cheesy side of things and as Kirsty says not PiHG enough? Probably - hence why I decided not to suggest it earlier. It probably also sounds even more rational than my earlier post, but the intention in Bell's paper is to provide a set of fragments exploring the relationship between food and the city - some entries better developed than others. That idea of fragments probably better captures what the emergent themes in this blog represent. Here's the abstract, or appetiser as Bell describes it, so you can see what he means:
"APPETISER
This paper presents a series of fragments exploring particular aspects of the relationship
between food and the city. My intention is not to provide a fully articulated thesis on urban
culinary geography, but instead to present some random snapshots, some first thoughts. Some are better developed than others, which flash past like fast cars or subliminal blipverts; that’s
inevitable in such polymorphous sites as postmodern metropolises. Like that familiar publication that guides us round the urban landscape, the A–Z, the entries are arranged alphabetically, and
each follows its own logic and trajectory. The disjunctures between them reflect the chaotic
heterotopian shape of the contemporary city. Taken together, they represent the beginning of the project of rethinking how food and urban space come together in particular contexts, from the work of the chef to the scavenging of feral animals. Conscious of perpetrating the crime of generalizing ‘the city’, I would state that the cities of which I am tasting here are early twenty-first century ‘world cities’, the postindustrial metropolises, the themed, malled, mediatized urban sprawls—and I apologize for the exclusions and omissions that this inevitably means. Others can surely add to my lexicon with their own entries from diverse locations."
The full ref is:
Bell, D. (2002) Fragments for a new urban culinary geography. Journal for the Study of Food and Society, 6, 1, 10-21.
This ref might be the same one Paul mentions? I can't remember.
I don't think Vegas gets a mention or Partridges!
OK - enough from me!!
Cheers
Damian
Thanks Kirsty and Paul for your recent posts - good stuff. All this talk about messiness (in Kirsty's post) makes me realise that my conclusions in the 'emerging themes' post possibly appear a little too rational! Oh well. I was also tempted to propose extending the menu idea from a paper David Bell wrote in 2002 where he produces a menu to describe culinary culture in the city (he organises the themes alphabetically, like a city A-Z). In the afters paper - where we might ditch the starter and main and go straight to afters!? - I was thinking we could present the themes a like that!? Is that a little bit on the cheesy side of things and as Kirsty says not PiHG enough? Probably - hence why I decided not to suggest it earlier. It probably also sounds even more rational than my earlier post, but the intention in Bell's paper is to provide a set of fragments exploring the relationship between food and the city - some entries better developed than others. That idea of fragments probably better captures what the emergent themes in this blog represent. Here's the abstract, or appetiser as Bell describes it, so you can see what he means:
"APPETISER
This paper presents a series of fragments exploring particular aspects of the relationship
between food and the city. My intention is not to provide a fully articulated thesis on urban
culinary geography, but instead to present some random snapshots, some first thoughts. Some are better developed than others, which flash past like fast cars or subliminal blipverts; that’s
inevitable in such polymorphous sites as postmodern metropolises. Like that familiar publication that guides us round the urban landscape, the A–Z, the entries are arranged alphabetically, and
each follows its own logic and trajectory. The disjunctures between them reflect the chaotic
heterotopian shape of the contemporary city. Taken together, they represent the beginning of the project of rethinking how food and urban space come together in particular contexts, from the work of the chef to the scavenging of feral animals. Conscious of perpetrating the crime of generalizing ‘the city’, I would state that the cities of which I am tasting here are early twenty-first century ‘world cities’, the postindustrial metropolises, the themed, malled, mediatized urban sprawls—and I apologize for the exclusions and omissions that this inevitably means. Others can surely add to my lexicon with their own entries from diverse locations."
The full ref is:
Bell, D. (2002) Fragments for a new urban culinary geography. Journal for the Study of Food and Society, 6, 1, 10-21.
This ref might be the same one Paul mentions? I can't remember.
I don't think Vegas gets a mention or Partridges!
OK - enough from me!!
Cheers
Damian
From Kersty Hobson
Woke up this morning thinking ‘now, what is it that I am forgetting to do?’ then realized it was posting some thoughts on where now/what’s it been like etc for this blog, before our time expires. When I say forget, I think I actually mean ‘put to the back of my mind in the hope that some inspiration will well-up and spring fully formed while I am cooking risotto or something’. It isn’t that I am not willing to apply my grey matter to some of the vast array of fascinating issues/concerns/thoughts touched upon herein. It is rather that I have to admit—and my naïve assumption that people like honesty has got me into trouble many times, so what’s one more!—that I have somewhat mixed/ambivalent/unsure reactions to this mode of working, and I have been baulking/struggling/evading attempts to put this into a coherent statement (and I am not saying that this is coherent or even qualifies as a ‘statement’ – I think Ian’s noun ‘dump’ comes closer to it!).
To explain I am in the process of reading John Law’s (2004) ‘After Method: Mess in social science research’. The book basically explores where the desire and practice of (re)presenting our worlds (in our case, through our research and publications) as singular comes from: and how we might work in and through the multiplicities/slipperiness of things that we all encounter but don’t quite know how to put across, and thus end up silencing—arguments/experiences I am sure you are all familiar with. So this got me thinking of different ways such approaches might work for this blog/project – how we might tell divergent stories, opinions, representations etc in one piece. Boxes within the text? Juxtaposed columns telling different stories of the same ‘thing’? Nice in theory– but then the practicalities kicks in i.e. how do we do it in practice; have we got the time or energy; would it even work and result in something approaching readability; and will the publishers of such a 'respected' journal wear it etc? So once again, the desire for a linear, singular storyline takes hold, and we end up with the same options/ways of working i.e. circulate drafts etc.
I know these are the issues that Ian and others are butting up against all the time in this and other work, hence this blog-experiment. So this isn’t a criticism of this project (in fact, far from it—I really admire Ian’s work and the integrity he exudes). I don’t actually have any pithy conclusions (So I think this posting just proved my, well John Law’s point – the expectation of a pithy/succinct/singular conclusion) I guess it is just that old tension of how we put our conceptual/ethical commitments into practice in an ‘industry’ (for academia is undoubtedly one) that demands certain singular outcomes. So If I do have a finishing point/question it is how we might include the experiences of working in these ways/the challenges of trying to write/think/share differently in a piece that is meant to, knowing how PHG works, be a straight up and down review of the literature. Once again, no conclusions…just more questions!!
To explain I am in the process of reading John Law’s (2004) ‘After Method: Mess in social science research’. The book basically explores where the desire and practice of (re)presenting our worlds (in our case, through our research and publications) as singular comes from: and how we might work in and through the multiplicities/slipperiness of things that we all encounter but don’t quite know how to put across, and thus end up silencing—arguments/experiences I am sure you are all familiar with. So this got me thinking of different ways such approaches might work for this blog/project – how we might tell divergent stories, opinions, representations etc in one piece. Boxes within the text? Juxtaposed columns telling different stories of the same ‘thing’? Nice in theory– but then the practicalities kicks in i.e. how do we do it in practice; have we got the time or energy; would it even work and result in something approaching readability; and will the publishers of such a 'respected' journal wear it etc? So once again, the desire for a linear, singular storyline takes hold, and we end up with the same options/ways of working i.e. circulate drafts etc.
I know these are the issues that Ian and others are butting up against all the time in this and other work, hence this blog-experiment. So this isn’t a criticism of this project (in fact, far from it—I really admire Ian’s work and the integrity he exudes). I don’t actually have any pithy conclusions (So I think this posting just proved my, well John Law’s point – the expectation of a pithy/succinct/singular conclusion) I guess it is just that old tension of how we put our conceptual/ethical commitments into practice in an ‘industry’ (for academia is undoubtedly one) that demands certain singular outcomes. So If I do have a finishing point/question it is how we might include the experiences of working in these ways/the challenges of trying to write/think/share differently in a piece that is meant to, knowing how PHG works, be a straight up and down review of the literature. Once again, no conclusions…just more questions!!
Vegas..?
Hi Everyone
I agree with Paul about how this blogging has made me want to have 'proper' conversations with people about what they're up to and what they've said. AAG Las Vegas 2009 may be a conference that many of us may be planning to attend. I'm planning to be there but, unfortunately, can't volunteer to organise a session (something else is going on there). I do like the idea of as many of us as are there just going out for a meal one evening, though. This is something we could organise via the blog, etc... and if there's anything to report from it, we could post it, etc.. and continue those conversations... with others, meet up elsewhere.. see what happens...
This process could start earlier, for those in the UK able to come to Jean Duruz's seminar in Exeter's Geography Department at 4pm on Thursday 30th October, entitled 'Quesadillas with Chinese black bean puree: eating together in 'ethnic' neighbourhoods'.
Over and out
Ian
I agree with Paul about how this blogging has made me want to have 'proper' conversations with people about what they're up to and what they've said. AAG Las Vegas 2009 may be a conference that many of us may be planning to attend. I'm planning to be there but, unfortunately, can't volunteer to organise a session (something else is going on there). I do like the idea of as many of us as are there just going out for a meal one evening, though. This is something we could organise via the blog, etc... and if there's anything to report from it, we could post it, etc.. and continue those conversations... with others, meet up elsewhere.. see what happens...
This process could start earlier, for those in the UK able to come to Jean Duruz's seminar in Exeter's Geography Department at 4pm on Thursday 30th October, entitled 'Quesadillas with Chinese black bean puree: eating together in 'ethnic' neighbourhoods'.
Over and out
Ian
From Alan Partridge to Las Vegas
In a scene in the Alan Partridge (BBC, 1997) episode entitled "Basic Alan", Alan Partridge ("a failed chat show host turned early morning Radio Norwich presenter", played by Steve Coogan) is seized by a bout of existential ennui in his beloved Rover 800 car. Alan muses:
“You know, these are inertia reel seatbelts. They were developed in the late-sixties, early-seventies basically to enable you to lean forward for things [Alan leans forward to demonstrate. Lynn [his assistant, copies him]. But in a crash, they do stop you because: [Alan yanks hard on the seatbelt] Impact! Bang! Lock! [He pulls hard against the seatbelt and grunts] I mean, you get bruises, but... I’d love to feel an airbag go off in my face. It would be [leans forward again, sharply, then mimes an airbag going off] Brrr, boosh! Boosh! A really cushioned effect on the face. Ohh. I’ll be honest, Lynn, I’m at a loose end, today. That’s why I’m, er that’s why I’m, er talking, [Alan enunciates the word exaggeratedly], talking, that’s why I’m talking”.
In contributing to the Blog or “Web Log”, I identify with Alan’s bitter-sweet consciousness of the act of talking. On the one hand, I feel energized by the Blog as an expression of all the different themes and approaches to geographies of food, and, on the other hand, I feel really hemmed in by the format of the Blog (I liked Jean’s take on the genres of writing) to the extent that I’d much prefer to sit down and chat about these things with fellow Bloggers – maybe at a conference over some drinks and food! Even as I Blog about Blogging, I feel like “I’m Blogging, I’m Blogging…”: not so much out of boredom like Alan, but out of an awkward awareness of writing through and in the medium of the Blog. For me, the Blog mixes the media of writing (which for me is so often a refreshingly lonely act) and conversing (which I love, but would much prefer to engage via speaking and listening rather than typing). I have never really Blogged before, mainly because I feel like or fear that email colonizes enough of my time. I sure look forward to reading how the Blog is translated into the article, but I look even more forward to (re)meeting my fellow Bloggers. I guess that is a sign of the Blog’s success? What was the aim anyway? Was there one? Does it matter? It was interesting to say the least. But was it? Who knows?
My above description of Blogging seems all very Jean Baudrillard in terms of how cyber communication so often takes place at the juncture of ecstasy and banality, much like Alan’s monologue. So here’s a plea to Ian and others: can we could ‘go beyond the Blog’ and find a place to talk? Why? Because I like what I read and where the research on geographies of food is going (I found Damian’s entry useful here). One obvious place would be a conference such as the AAGs. The next one in 2009 is in Las Vegas. Now there’s another place that combines ecstasy and banality! And, I hear the G ‘n’ T’s are cheap.
Slainte,
Paul Kingsbury
(Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University)
“You know, these are inertia reel seatbelts. They were developed in the late-sixties, early-seventies basically to enable you to lean forward for things [Alan leans forward to demonstrate. Lynn [his assistant, copies him]. But in a crash, they do stop you because: [Alan yanks hard on the seatbelt] Impact! Bang! Lock! [He pulls hard against the seatbelt and grunts] I mean, you get bruises, but... I’d love to feel an airbag go off in my face. It would be [leans forward again, sharply, then mimes an airbag going off] Brrr, boosh! Boosh! A really cushioned effect on the face. Ohh. I’ll be honest, Lynn, I’m at a loose end, today. That’s why I’m, er that’s why I’m, er talking, [Alan enunciates the word exaggeratedly], talking, that’s why I’m talking”.
In contributing to the Blog or “Web Log”, I identify with Alan’s bitter-sweet consciousness of the act of talking. On the one hand, I feel energized by the Blog as an expression of all the different themes and approaches to geographies of food, and, on the other hand, I feel really hemmed in by the format of the Blog (I liked Jean’s take on the genres of writing) to the extent that I’d much prefer to sit down and chat about these things with fellow Bloggers – maybe at a conference over some drinks and food! Even as I Blog about Blogging, I feel like “I’m Blogging, I’m Blogging…”: not so much out of boredom like Alan, but out of an awkward awareness of writing through and in the medium of the Blog. For me, the Blog mixes the media of writing (which for me is so often a refreshingly lonely act) and conversing (which I love, but would much prefer to engage via speaking and listening rather than typing). I have never really Blogged before, mainly because I feel like or fear that email colonizes enough of my time. I sure look forward to reading how the Blog is translated into the article, but I look even more forward to (re)meeting my fellow Bloggers. I guess that is a sign of the Blog’s success? What was the aim anyway? Was there one? Does it matter? It was interesting to say the least. But was it? Who knows?
My above description of Blogging seems all very Jean Baudrillard in terms of how cyber communication so often takes place at the juncture of ecstasy and banality, much like Alan’s monologue. So here’s a plea to Ian and others: can we could ‘go beyond the Blog’ and find a place to talk? Why? Because I like what I read and where the research on geographies of food is going (I found Damian’s entry useful here). One obvious place would be a conference such as the AAGs. The next one in 2009 is in Las Vegas. Now there’s another place that combines ecstasy and banality! And, I hear the G ‘n’ T’s are cheap.
Slainte,
Paul Kingsbury
(Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Inflight: Exchange Value
Hi Ian, no this is not a good time (panic stations: flying to LA tomorrow and thence to New York, Toronto, Rome, London and Singapore, and not home till Christmas … blah, blah, blah) and yet it is. Means I have to be quick, and maybe rough but to the point, re ongoing obsessions.
1. Collective writing: between the potluck and the feast
Here I think there’s space for another alternative – the degustation. I wouldn’t assume that the potluck is always indigestible or lacks a cumulative resonance – it’s just that you need to graze discriminately. Of course you’ll do this anyway, according to disciplinary background, politics, what seems ‘new’, quirky; what opens up new ways of looking at things. Nevertheless, a degustation assumes something more structured: a careful balancing of ‘tastes’ while retaining a sense of fragments – competing voices. David Bell’s article on food in the city (reference, Ian?) takes this approach, and the whole ends up being more than the sum of its parts.
2. Collective writing: nostalgia
As a product of the so-called Birmingham School (long note: the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies’ line was never coherent enough for it to constitute a ‘School’ … it tended to be seen as either a raggle-taggle of lefties, feminists, gays, black people or a bold cultural experiment in university education – take your pick), I am well steeped in the values of working and writing together. Much of our writing at Birmingham was written in blood. Intellectual (and otherwise) friendships were forged, occasionally enemies made. (See Richard Johnson's chapter 'Teaching without Guarantees' in ??, Epstein and Johnson for a gentle history of CCCS.) While the blog is a milder version of the intensity of this ‘experience’, it seems to me that it is using technology in ways that reference the rich potential of exchange sans frontiers (?Ian: dictionary here), well at least in the literal geographical sense.
3. Collective writing: romance
I don’t want to be utopian about the ‘blog’ form as necessarily guaranteeing a form of collective esprit and community. You can read Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Community if you want that warm glow. But I do think exchange itself – that ‘unsettling’ I talked about earlier is a very fine thing, and that is what we need to keep going – that sense of questioning and debate in a reasonably ‘safe’ but rigorous context.
4. Aftermath: flightplan
Personally, I like the metaphor of exchange here too – exchange as a methodology but also as a core moment (am I claiming too much? Probably. However, this certainly fits in with my own research). Exchange appears to thread through much of the discussion we’ve generated here, whether we’re re-thinking relations with animals, reclaiming the value of ethnography, re-emphasising food security and just distribution or zooming in on the intricacies of people's everyday exchanges, particularly in contexts of difference.
I’m not sure I’ve changed my own position fundamentally due to the blog. Nevertheless, both the process and the actual contributions have certainly opened up new routes and occasionally ‘troubled’ (Butler) the tried and tested (even if I kid myself that my version of this is still ‘radical’). The value of risk when travelling, I guess.
1. Collective writing: between the potluck and the feast
Here I think there’s space for another alternative – the degustation. I wouldn’t assume that the potluck is always indigestible or lacks a cumulative resonance – it’s just that you need to graze discriminately. Of course you’ll do this anyway, according to disciplinary background, politics, what seems ‘new’, quirky; what opens up new ways of looking at things. Nevertheless, a degustation assumes something more structured: a careful balancing of ‘tastes’ while retaining a sense of fragments – competing voices. David Bell’s article on food in the city (reference, Ian?) takes this approach, and the whole ends up being more than the sum of its parts.
2. Collective writing: nostalgia
As a product of the so-called Birmingham School (long note: the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies’ line was never coherent enough for it to constitute a ‘School’ … it tended to be seen as either a raggle-taggle of lefties, feminists, gays, black people or a bold cultural experiment in university education – take your pick), I am well steeped in the values of working and writing together. Much of our writing at Birmingham was written in blood. Intellectual (and otherwise) friendships were forged, occasionally enemies made. (See Richard Johnson's chapter 'Teaching without Guarantees' in ??, Epstein and Johnson for a gentle history of CCCS.) While the blog is a milder version of the intensity of this ‘experience’, it seems to me that it is using technology in ways that reference the rich potential of exchange sans frontiers (?Ian: dictionary here), well at least in the literal geographical sense.
3. Collective writing: romance
I don’t want to be utopian about the ‘blog’ form as necessarily guaranteeing a form of collective esprit and community. You can read Howard Rheingold’s Virtual Community if you want that warm glow. But I do think exchange itself – that ‘unsettling’ I talked about earlier is a very fine thing, and that is what we need to keep going – that sense of questioning and debate in a reasonably ‘safe’ but rigorous context.
4. Aftermath: flightplan
Personally, I like the metaphor of exchange here too – exchange as a methodology but also as a core moment (am I claiming too much? Probably. However, this certainly fits in with my own research). Exchange appears to thread through much of the discussion we’ve generated here, whether we’re re-thinking relations with animals, reclaiming the value of ethnography, re-emphasising food security and just distribution or zooming in on the intricacies of people's everyday exchanges, particularly in contexts of difference.
I’m not sure I’ve changed my own position fundamentally due to the blog. Nevertheless, both the process and the actual contributions have certainly opened up new routes and occasionally ‘troubled’ (Butler) the tried and tested (even if I kid myself that my version of this is still ‘radical’). The value of risk when travelling, I guess.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Some emerging themes?
Hi there Ian et al.,
I've now had a chance to flick through the entries to the food blog and have a few comments to help develop a structure/writing plan for the 'afters' paper. Thanks to Alison and Jessica for kicking-off the discussions on Stage 2 - collaborative writing.
The blog contains a diverse range of comments/reflections/examples which is excellent. Retaining a sense of that vibrancy/flavour will be important and also challenging. Will readers of the paper be directed to the blog? I assume so. This has implications for what goes into the paper, of course. The comments below address the three questions Ian asked us to address (about the mechanics of collaborative writing, my own blog experience and any thoughts on what I think we've learned about geogs of food). My response to the third question in particular attempts to draw out some emerging themes/conclusions, although people might disagree with me! Apologies if this seems a little too structured, but i think a few (probably obvious) points have emerged through the entries and these can at least form a platform for discussion/collaborative writing. Here goes:
1]. The mechanics of collaborative writing. I'd favour the second of the two options proposed by Alison and Jessica - the head chef option. If I'm honest, I'd actually prefer the original proposal, with Ian using the blog entries and discussions on structure to help develop an agreed structure from which to write something from. The danger otherwise is that the paper takes quite a while to draft, as different 'authors' work at different paces due to other pressures. Given time pressures, the original proposal might still be the 'best' option? From personal experience, most of the stuff I write is collaborative (because I work on collaborative projects). This usually involves someone taking the lead and others contributing critical comments/edits/re-drafting the thing and maybe adding the odd section (e.g. a conclusion). I've not written (or attempted to write) with so many authors before, or via a blog like this, but it seems inevitable (for it to work) that someone takes the lead in drafting a first draft? The "too many Cooks"(!) analogy could become very apt here otherwise. Terrible pun, i know, but i couldn't resist!
2]. My blog experience. Blumming awful. A complete waste of time and energy...not really! This has thus far been a fascinating exercise. I don't usually bother with blogging - I'm fearful it will get me side-tracked and waste my time! This blog has diverted my attentions a little, but it has been good fun and also very useful. I'm also intrigued by the authorship process and how that might yet work out. More generally, the process has also revealed a range of interesting work under the 'food geographies' umbrella. My initial blog on what we mean by/interpret as food geographies still holds up and might warrant some concluding comment. It has also been interesting to observe how people have approached the papers/the blog: some commenting explicitly on one or two of the papers - or even specific concepts within (e.g. 'rounded people', commodity fetishism, following); others providing more stand-back comments on future directions for food geographies, etc; others providing specific details on their research interests/foci; others providing examples based on research/teaching/personal experience. The entries often transcend more than one of these categories, of course. Collectively they also provide contextual insights into how different contributors take on food geographies and their links to it. That was one of the points and has therefore clearly worked well. The challenge for the 'afters' paper is to make sense of this, as Ian notes.
3]. Emerging themes/silences. Here is my attempt to 'pull out' some themes which emerge across the food blog. Whether or not they figure in the paper is perhaps debatable, but here they are:
* Afters on following/mixing: A number of the comments/entries discuss following as a methodology in terms of: its potentials; its purpose/value/what it offers; what it doesn't offer; how we might 'scale it out' (e.g. Le Heron's 'big business/Fonterra' work; Mather's disease/virus network proposal/work; Roe and Buller's animal welfare work and comments by Hulme, myself and others). Some after-thoughts on this discussion might be useful. A similar discussion on 'mixing' responses could also be drawn out/useful/doable? Certainly after some initial comments on the overall food blogging aim/process (by Ian) a summary of comments/reactions from the first two papers would be sensible/logical. Perhaps that's too logical?
* Doing food geography: This follows on from the above and also takes various guises. One thing that has often struck me is that 'food geographies' (if such a label exists?) tend to be qualitative in nature. This might seem broad-brush, but the majority of responses seem to support this view (echoed also in Ian's first PiHG paper). Relatedly, there seems a preference to build accounts of food from the ground up. In fact some call for more empirical work in key areas (e.g., Mike Goodman's comments on food ethics). Related to this 'doing' issue is wider points about: critical food geography (see my comments and others by Nally, Guthman and Hallett); public food geography/geographies/studies (see comments about 'spaces of interaction' - Putnam; knowledge exchange/transfer - Le Heron, Tucker) and the challenges/opportunities of inter-disciplinarity (including mentions of RELU). In short, comments/reflections on how we do and why we do 'food geography' seems strong in a number of the posts and worth writing about.
* Emergent themes: reading across the blogs some interesting calls for new work/recognition of on-going connected work/themes are made. Here are the obvious ones I highlighted:
- food geographies and animal geographies, esp. animal welfare (Roe/Buller/Philo)
- hunger, scarcity and food prices (Mather/Nally/my good self!)
- disease and biosecurity (Mather)
- the body and food (various refs that substantiate/add to earlier mixing paper)
- viscerality, aesthetics and taste (Kingsbury and Goodman - follows on from the last point)
- moral food geographies (various posts on inter alia ethics of consumption, animal husbandry / welfare, etc)
OK - those are a few cross-cutting themes. You might not agree with them all, but obviously we need to identify these kind of things from which to write something around, hence why I've listed them. The one potentially over-arching theme that intercedes a number of the blogs is relations between morals/ethics and food production/consumption.
Look forward to hearing / reading other peoples thoughts on this phase of the paper.
Feel free to disagree with my ramblings.
Cheers,
Damian
University of Gloucestershire
I've now had a chance to flick through the entries to the food blog and have a few comments to help develop a structure/writing plan for the 'afters' paper. Thanks to Alison and Jessica for kicking-off the discussions on Stage 2 - collaborative writing.
The blog contains a diverse range of comments/reflections/examples which is excellent. Retaining a sense of that vibrancy/flavour will be important and also challenging. Will readers of the paper be directed to the blog? I assume so. This has implications for what goes into the paper, of course. The comments below address the three questions Ian asked us to address (about the mechanics of collaborative writing, my own blog experience and any thoughts on what I think we've learned about geogs of food). My response to the third question in particular attempts to draw out some emerging themes/conclusions, although people might disagree with me! Apologies if this seems a little too structured, but i think a few (probably obvious) points have emerged through the entries and these can at least form a platform for discussion/collaborative writing. Here goes:
1]. The mechanics of collaborative writing. I'd favour the second of the two options proposed by Alison and Jessica - the head chef option. If I'm honest, I'd actually prefer the original proposal, with Ian using the blog entries and discussions on structure to help develop an agreed structure from which to write something from. The danger otherwise is that the paper takes quite a while to draft, as different 'authors' work at different paces due to other pressures. Given time pressures, the original proposal might still be the 'best' option? From personal experience, most of the stuff I write is collaborative (because I work on collaborative projects). This usually involves someone taking the lead and others contributing critical comments/edits/re-drafting the thing and maybe adding the odd section (e.g. a conclusion). I've not written (or attempted to write) with so many authors before, or via a blog like this, but it seems inevitable (for it to work) that someone takes the lead in drafting a first draft? The "too many Cooks"(!) analogy could become very apt here otherwise. Terrible pun, i know, but i couldn't resist!
2]. My blog experience. Blumming awful. A complete waste of time and energy...not really! This has thus far been a fascinating exercise. I don't usually bother with blogging - I'm fearful it will get me side-tracked and waste my time! This blog has diverted my attentions a little, but it has been good fun and also very useful. I'm also intrigued by the authorship process and how that might yet work out. More generally, the process has also revealed a range of interesting work under the 'food geographies' umbrella. My initial blog on what we mean by/interpret as food geographies still holds up and might warrant some concluding comment. It has also been interesting to observe how people have approached the papers/the blog: some commenting explicitly on one or two of the papers - or even specific concepts within (e.g. 'rounded people', commodity fetishism, following); others providing more stand-back comments on future directions for food geographies, etc; others providing specific details on their research interests/foci; others providing examples based on research/teaching/personal experience. The entries often transcend more than one of these categories, of course. Collectively they also provide contextual insights into how different contributors take on food geographies and their links to it. That was one of the points and has therefore clearly worked well. The challenge for the 'afters' paper is to make sense of this, as Ian notes.
3]. Emerging themes/silences. Here is my attempt to 'pull out' some themes which emerge across the food blog. Whether or not they figure in the paper is perhaps debatable, but here they are:
* Afters on following/mixing: A number of the comments/entries discuss following as a methodology in terms of: its potentials; its purpose/value/what it offers; what it doesn't offer; how we might 'scale it out' (e.g. Le Heron's 'big business/Fonterra' work; Mather's disease/virus network proposal/work; Roe and Buller's animal welfare work and comments by Hulme, myself and others). Some after-thoughts on this discussion might be useful. A similar discussion on 'mixing' responses could also be drawn out/useful/doable? Certainly after some initial comments on the overall food blogging aim/process (by Ian) a summary of comments/reactions from the first two papers would be sensible/logical. Perhaps that's too logical?
* Doing food geography: This follows on from the above and also takes various guises. One thing that has often struck me is that 'food geographies' (if such a label exists?) tend to be qualitative in nature. This might seem broad-brush, but the majority of responses seem to support this view (echoed also in Ian's first PiHG paper). Relatedly, there seems a preference to build accounts of food from the ground up. In fact some call for more empirical work in key areas (e.g., Mike Goodman's comments on food ethics). Related to this 'doing' issue is wider points about: critical food geography (see my comments and others by Nally, Guthman and Hallett); public food geography/geographies/studies (see comments about 'spaces of interaction' - Putnam; knowledge exchange/transfer - Le Heron, Tucker) and the challenges/opportunities of inter-disciplinarity (including mentions of RELU). In short, comments/reflections on how we do and why we do 'food geography' seems strong in a number of the posts and worth writing about.
* Emergent themes: reading across the blogs some interesting calls for new work/recognition of on-going connected work/themes are made. Here are the obvious ones I highlighted:
- food geographies and animal geographies, esp. animal welfare (Roe/Buller/Philo)
- hunger, scarcity and food prices (Mather/Nally/my good self!)
- disease and biosecurity (Mather)
- the body and food (various refs that substantiate/add to earlier mixing paper)
- viscerality, aesthetics and taste (Kingsbury and Goodman - follows on from the last point)
- moral food geographies (various posts on inter alia ethics of consumption, animal husbandry / welfare, etc)
OK - those are a few cross-cutting themes. You might not agree with them all, but obviously we need to identify these kind of things from which to write something around, hence why I've listed them. The one potentially over-arching theme that intercedes a number of the blogs is relations between morals/ethics and food production/consumption.
Look forward to hearing / reading other peoples thoughts on this phase of the paper.
Feel free to disagree with my ramblings.
Cheers,
Damian
University of Gloucestershire
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Collective Writing and the Question of Direction(s)
We continue to be pleased to participate in this on-going, collective food blog. Though this third report has been labeled “afters,” thus far our experience with the blog has had more of a sense of collective preparation and individual nibbling – with the meal yet to come… The task, now, is preparing that meal.
In terms of the first question, that of the mechanics of “collaborative writing,” our experience in collaborative efforts comes more from the kitchen than from the computer. It seems there are two possibilities as we proceed collectively. The first is a potluck style effort – a mismatched and disheveled array of interesting dishes, chaotically arranged, but always with something for everyone. (In mechanical terms this might mean passing around parts of the paper more vigorously among individuals targeted for those sections.) The second is a more like a feast – a polished and graceful event, led by a dedicated head chef (seems we have one of these!) and powered by lots of enthusiastic sous chefs (got these too). (In mechanical terms this seems more hierarchical, something to the effect of the head chef asking: could person A write this section on ABC, person B integrate XYZ here, and could person C chop the carrots?) Both the potluck and the feast have their plusses and minuses – individuality versus unity, modesty versus ostentation, indigestion versus distention. Either way, I am sure there will be lots of full bellies in the end.
In terms of the second question, that of where we think food-based research in geography is (or should be) “heading,” we have to say that heading doesn’t feel like the right word. Expanding, seeping, oozing, running, and even exploding seem more appropriate. That is to say, this blog is a testament to the fact that food geographies aren’t headed in one particular direction but rather rapidly and excitingly reaching many new literal and metaphorical places. Cultural, political, rural, urban, feminist, health-based, animal, post-human, material…geographies of affect, emotion…the list could go on and on. Precisely because food can be followed, mixed, tasted, and digested in so many places and in so many ways it has quickly become a vastly expansive and important topic for geography and beyond. Food-based analysis can both help us to better understand current areas of geographic inquiry (e.g. in our own work, geographies of affect and the body) and can lead us as a discipline into ever-new (interdisciplinary) territory (e.g. psychology or biology). In this sense, the “afters” are just the beginning. As this meal travels beyond our collective stomachs and through our bodies’ many interconnected systems – digestive, circulatory, nervous, etc… - we look forward to ever-more potential for expanding our geographic understanding (and of course, our food-based metaphors)!
Thanks,
Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy
In terms of the first question, that of the mechanics of “collaborative writing,” our experience in collaborative efforts comes more from the kitchen than from the computer. It seems there are two possibilities as we proceed collectively. The first is a potluck style effort – a mismatched and disheveled array of interesting dishes, chaotically arranged, but always with something for everyone. (In mechanical terms this might mean passing around parts of the paper more vigorously among individuals targeted for those sections.) The second is a more like a feast – a polished and graceful event, led by a dedicated head chef (seems we have one of these!) and powered by lots of enthusiastic sous chefs (got these too). (In mechanical terms this seems more hierarchical, something to the effect of the head chef asking: could person A write this section on ABC, person B integrate XYZ here, and could person C chop the carrots?) Both the potluck and the feast have their plusses and minuses – individuality versus unity, modesty versus ostentation, indigestion versus distention. Either way, I am sure there will be lots of full bellies in the end.
In terms of the second question, that of where we think food-based research in geography is (or should be) “heading,” we have to say that heading doesn’t feel like the right word. Expanding, seeping, oozing, running, and even exploding seem more appropriate. That is to say, this blog is a testament to the fact that food geographies aren’t headed in one particular direction but rather rapidly and excitingly reaching many new literal and metaphorical places. Cultural, political, rural, urban, feminist, health-based, animal, post-human, material…geographies of affect, emotion…the list could go on and on. Precisely because food can be followed, mixed, tasted, and digested in so many places and in so many ways it has quickly become a vastly expansive and important topic for geography and beyond. Food-based analysis can both help us to better understand current areas of geographic inquiry (e.g. in our own work, geographies of affect and the body) and can lead us as a discipline into ever-new (interdisciplinary) territory (e.g. psychology or biology). In this sense, the “afters” are just the beginning. As this meal travels beyond our collective stomachs and through our bodies’ many interconnected systems – digestive, circulatory, nervous, etc… - we look forward to ever-more potential for expanding our geographic understanding (and of course, our food-based metaphors)!
Thanks,
Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Spaces of mixing: the potential of being intentional
First, let me say that I am a first-rate flake – lots of enthusiasm and promises but not a lot of action following them, until Ian sent me THREE 'nudgingly reminding' emails. Locational schitzophrenia has been at fault in the last month or so, but now I am firmly seated again in
I am especially interested in the comments and stories related by Jean Duruz in her blog post, particularly the discussion referring to Ian's usage of hooks' 'eating the other'. Drawing on Hage, Nayaran and Ang, Duruz raises the possibility of a cultural exchange that is not centered on white privilege and positionality, but that also uses the guilt that accompanies it as an instrument for understanding and interaction. What I want to contribute is not so much a discussion of the theory behind that, but some experiences in my own research that raise even more questions about issues of spaces of exchange and the moral economy of those spaces. I am especially interested in constructed spaces of mixing and the intersections between foods mixing and social movements centered on food itself, such as the fair trade movement. As other bloggers have already done, I want to briefly address food geographies especially in relation to their moral economies, but also my own role in creating those geographies.
Can intentionally constructed spaces of exchange and interaction around food and consumables effectively defetishize the thing and illuminate social relations? This question has preoccupied me since even before I entered graduate school, when I coordinated a fair trade agrotourism project in
This reaffirms questions already discussed in this blog about who is placed at the center of spaces of mixing (the white person or the other?) and who controls these spaces – even when it is ostensibly a space of production, rather than a space of consumption such as a restaurant? The farmers and cooperatives in the project have become more aware of their places and roles in the fair trade social movement as a result of their interaction with consumers/tourists/visitors; but those positions have not markedly changed as a result of those interactions. The farmers are still subject not only to market demand for their coffee (albeit certified market), but also to consumers' needs for the 'truth' of fair trade to exist in a way that fits their own experiences. They need to know that they are making a difference. The cooperative catering to that need within the consumer's own contextual framework ensures that the consumer continues to buy fair trade coffee (as my research has shown), but limits the mutual learning and knowing of the complexity of the relationship between the consumer and the producer. The point is that we can follow and we can mix, but even these methods can be limited by the political and moral economies of the relationships surrounding the 'things' we are involving ourselves with. It is exactly those moral economies of food and following that make it interesting.
I take a quote from
From Chris Philo
In writing about geographies of food, animals cannot but be present. After all, animals provide the basic elements comprising so many human meals - here I mean non-human animals, although occasionally of course human animals have been food for other humans, and the geographies to be written, empirically and conceptually, of cannibalism might cause us pause for thought. (Incidentally, while musing on outlandish topics, recall the papers on the geography of geophagy [?] or 'earth-eating': there was definitely one on this topic in the 'Geographical Review', I think, back in the early-1970s.[Hunter 1973?])
But back to animals: yes, surely a geography of food must address the whole issue of the lifeforms that are the basis of so much that humans eat. There is a link to plant geography (biogeography), of course, but if we stick to animals, then subjects for discussion include obvious ones: the kinds of agricultural production systems into which animals are inserted, opening out on to the whole history of animal domestication (Kay Anderson's work [e.g. Anderson 1997, 1998?]), but maybe slightly inflecting the usual things to be said about the political-economies of such production systems - or indeed the cultural economies (Emma Roe's recent work? [2006a&b?]) - by worrying about the lifeworlds, experience, abuses, etc. of the animals themselves (see Michael Watts's work on chickens [eg. chapter at close of the 'Animal Spaces' book [Watts 2000?]] - he once declared that he wanted to write the history of capitalism through the eyes of a chicken).
Another angle is to consider the whole issue of the spaces between 'us' and the animals that we eat: they tend to kept away from centres of population - the whole 'get the livestock animals out of the city' argument (see my 1995 paper on 'Animals and the city' in S&S) - and in particular, an obvious but key point, so much effort is made to put the whole killing apparatus of the slaughterhouse (the 'disassembly line', as one writer called it) in spaces, behind walls, that the rest of us cannot see. (Note that there is an impressive tiny sub-genre of witing on the historical geography of slaugherhouses: I can give references.) This development is sometimes roped together - by authors as diverse as Baudrillard and Giddens - in an account of how 'developed' societies increasingly strive to place their psychologically troubling experiences (death, illness, madness, etc.) in distant spaces, often indexed as 'beyond the city' (and note here the links between cemetaries, asylums, prisons and slaughterhouses: often banished, from Victorian times onwards, to the most dubious, insalubrious outer districts of big cities - see Daniel Pick's [1993?] work on Parisian slaughterhouses). Surely, there is something key to consider for the geography of food - it has probably already been done somewhere, and maybe you have already commented upon it, if so apologies.
There is much else that could be said here about food geographies meeting animal geographies - but another twist might be to remember than non-human animals eat stuff too, and we humans will tend to call this 'food' - this point suggests two things: (i) what happens if we do a post-human geography of food, wherein food is everywhere for every being, etc. (does this just become 'ecology' by another name?); and (ii) what, culturally, is at stake in labelling something as 'food' (something that potentially can be eaten, by what?, and if we radically relativise what we mean by 'food', what it is, what can be eaten, what can eat it, when, where, with humans involved or maybe not, then what does a 'food geography' end up looking like?
[references guessed by Ian and added]
But back to animals: yes, surely a geography of food must address the whole issue of the lifeforms that are the basis of so much that humans eat. There is a link to plant geography (biogeography), of course, but if we stick to animals, then subjects for discussion include obvious ones: the kinds of agricultural production systems into which animals are inserted, opening out on to the whole history of animal domestication (Kay Anderson's work [e.g. Anderson 1997, 1998?]), but maybe slightly inflecting the usual things to be said about the political-economies of such production systems - or indeed the cultural economies (Emma Roe's recent work? [2006a&b?]) - by worrying about the lifeworlds, experience, abuses, etc. of the animals themselves (see Michael Watts's work on chickens [eg. chapter at close of the 'Animal Spaces' book [Watts 2000?]] - he once declared that he wanted to write the history of capitalism through the eyes of a chicken).
Another angle is to consider the whole issue of the spaces between 'us' and the animals that we eat: they tend to kept away from centres of population - the whole 'get the livestock animals out of the city' argument (see my 1995 paper on 'Animals and the city' in S&S) - and in particular, an obvious but key point, so much effort is made to put the whole killing apparatus of the slaughterhouse (the 'disassembly line', as one writer called it) in spaces, behind walls, that the rest of us cannot see. (Note that there is an impressive tiny sub-genre of witing on the historical geography of slaugherhouses: I can give references.) This development is sometimes roped together - by authors as diverse as Baudrillard and Giddens - in an account of how 'developed' societies increasingly strive to place their psychologically troubling experiences (death, illness, madness, etc.) in distant spaces, often indexed as 'beyond the city' (and note here the links between cemetaries, asylums, prisons and slaughterhouses: often banished, from Victorian times onwards, to the most dubious, insalubrious outer districts of big cities - see Daniel Pick's [1993?] work on Parisian slaughterhouses). Surely, there is something key to consider for the geography of food - it has probably already been done somewhere, and maybe you have already commented upon it, if so apologies.
There is much else that could be said here about food geographies meeting animal geographies - but another twist might be to remember than non-human animals eat stuff too, and we humans will tend to call this 'food' - this point suggests two things: (i) what happens if we do a post-human geography of food, wherein food is everywhere for every being, etc. (does this just become 'ecology' by another name?); and (ii) what, culturally, is at stake in labelling something as 'food' (something that potentially can be eaten, by what?, and if we radically relativise what we mean by 'food', what it is, what can be eaten, what can eat it, when, where, with humans involved or maybe not, then what does a 'food geography' end up looking like?
[references guessed by Ian and added]
Collaborative writing
How can we turn a lively, bitty and extremely long blog discussion into a 7,000 word collaboratively-written 'review' paper?
I've been involved in this kind of thing in different ways for a few years now, and was asked recently to give a talk about this (it's not quite finished, but see). This blog is discussed in one section (see and let me know what you think by submitting a comment, if you like).
So, in the comments box below, I'd be interested in your thoughts about how 'we' should write together and what the mechanics of this process might be (with me doing the donkey work).
As far as I'm concerned, this blog/paper has given a 'right to reply' (that was the point from the start), will publish student work (we're not all faculty), has been a conversation (a blog-type one), could be 'mashed up' (if the coding points in that direction, although I'm not sure this is necessary or appropriate given the conversational spirit of the blog), couldn't be done word by word (unless anyone really wants to start this!), and is definitely a form of social sculpture (which isn't really explained but would be neat, given that the following review starts with a social scupture).
Whatever happens, this paper will be a new form of collaborative authorship for me and, I'm guessing, everyone else. Please pass on any relevant experience in this light!
I've been involved in this kind of thing in different ways for a few years now, and was asked recently to give a talk about this (it's not quite finished, but see). This blog is discussed in one section (see and let me know what you think by submitting a comment, if you like).
So, in the comments box below, I'd be interested in your thoughts about how 'we' should write together and what the mechanics of this process might be (with me doing the donkey work).
As far as I'm concerned, this blog/paper has given a 'right to reply' (that was the point from the start), will publish student work (we're not all faculty), has been a conversation (a blog-type one), could be 'mashed up' (if the coding points in that direction, although I'm not sure this is necessary or appropriate given the conversational spirit of the blog), couldn't be done word by word (unless anyone really wants to start this!), and is definitely a form of social sculpture (which isn't really explained but would be neat, given that the following review starts with a social scupture).
Whatever happens, this paper will be a new form of collaborative authorship for me and, I'm guessing, everyone else. Please pass on any relevant experience in this light!
Conclusions
We need some conclusions in this paper, or at least an appropriate way to end it. Some might come more easily when people see the first draft of the paper. But, for now, can you please add comments to this post (to keep this separate and focused!) addressing three questions:
1. what has this blogging experience been 'about' for you?
[Lisa does this at the end of her most recent post. What about the rest of us?]
2. what have you/we learned from contributing to this blog about the 'geographies of food' and, maybe, where its research is and should be heading?
1. what has this blogging experience been 'about' for you?
[Lisa does this at the end of her most recent post. What about the rest of us?]
2. what have you/we learned from contributing to this blog about the 'geographies of food' and, maybe, where its research is and should be heading?
A writing experiment
I've been writing the latest series of 'Geographies of food' reports for Progress in Human Geography.
The first one on food following - based on research influenced by Arjun Appadurai's (1986) 'social life of things', David Harvey's (1990) 'getting behind the veil of the commodity fetish', and George Marcus' (1995) 'multi-sited ethnography' - was published in 2006. The second one on food mixing - based on research influenced by bell hooks' (1992) 'eating the other' - will be published later this year (see below left for full references and availability).
I'd like the third and final one to be a collaborative, co-authored, experimental affair, arising from discussions on this blog between the 'up to 99 authors' invited so far. I'd would be grateful if they/you could read and respond to one or both of the first two reports, bounce off them, critique them, ask questions of them, and think about how these responses might be re-assembled into a 7,000 word 'review' paper...
As of 24 August 2008, 25 people had accepted invitations to contribute as co-authors and Blogger had timed out the invitations which hadn't received replies. If you would like to be re-invited - or contribute without registering by emailing your posts to me - please get in touch at i.j.cook@ex.ac.uk.
The conversation has started - as you'll see below - but time is quite tight. The deadline for postings has to be the end of this month (excuse the counter with its ticking seconds - it's the only one I could find). So - if you haven't already done so - please let rip sooner rather than later, so people can respond to your comments.
Please don't think you have to do tons of reading before you do this! Say what you know, base it on what you do, address questions of /issues about your work in the papers and blog. Short entries are as fine as longer ones. Discussions are unfolding in the comments at the foot of some of the posts, as well as on the main page.
Huge thanks go to Lucius Hallett, Mimi Sheller, David Nally, Rachel Slocum, Louise Crewe, Alison Hulme, Julie Guthman, Kersty Hobson, Damian Maye, Heike Henderson, Emma Roe, Henry Buller, Mike Goodman, Paul Kingsbury, Andrew Murphy, Jean Duruz, Charlie Mather, Allison Hayes-Conroy, Jessica Hayes-Conroy, Lisa Tucker and Richard LeHeron for their (multiple) contributions so far, and for the emails from others getting ready to post...
What's next?
Once the August 31st deadline has passed, I'll send out an email which a) asks for contributors' 'conclusions' regarding the discussions that have unfolded here; and b) putting forward, and asking for, ideas about writing a review paper based on these discussions. After these new discussions have taken place, I'll try to put together a draft paper (in the first couple of weeks of September?), circulate it via email for comments, etc... so as to hopefully be able to submit the afters review to PiHG at the end of September / early October. I have no intention of shutting down the blog after that - conversations can continue - unless some unforeseen legal issue comes to light (I'll raise any issue such as this on the blog before doing anything...).
Cheers
Ian
updated 31 August
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Things I’m interested in following…
In my first post to this blog, I failed to mention what brought me to Ian’s work in the first place, which was quite transformative for me. Reading the ‘Following’ paper as a graduate student helped me along the way in my art practice and affirmed some of the feelings I had regarding my work. The story of Shelly Sacks’ installation, “Exchange Values: Images of Invisible lives,” really hit me. Ian takes an art installation from the white cube into the supermarket and then to the classroom and back out to the market. As an artist and educator, I was fascinated by Ian’s performance, activating Shelly’s gallery work and making it more accessible with the notion of transforming, mixing if you will, art practice with other disciplines. The resulting experience becomes much richer than a visit to the gallery and is more likely to provoke a continued dialog. This is exactly what I was looking for in my own work. Showing in galleries always seems to fall a bit short, feeling more like a gesture than affecting social change.
At the time ‘Following’ was given to me, I was also working on my MFA thesis project, which brought together a group of artists, scientists, activists, historians and sociologists to examine alternative forms of food production, as well as the stories behind them. My personal project was cloning organic vegetables via an art installation (BioArt), but I was more interested in the conversations surrounding food production/consumption that were taking place in other fields of study. It seemed natural to organize an exhibition and symposium that would address our mutual interests. Some of the participants included sociologist Melanie DuPuis (Angels and Vegetables: The Birth of Food Advice in the US), activist Claire Pentecost (What Did You Eat and When Did You Know It?), artists Claude Willey + Deena Capparelli (Food, Fossil Fuels, and Climate Change: The Bizzare Love Triangle), and Director of the Plant Transformation Center at UC Riverside, Dr. Martha Orozco-Cardenas. The exhibition, “Bioneering: Hybrid Investigations of Food," provided a venue for exploration of the arts through multiple vantage points, also questioning the efficacy of the gallery to discuss social issues. We used the internet to broadcast panel discussions and had them available for viewing in the gallery, as well as performances at the opening reception. A catalogue was produced to accompany the exhibition, with a website for the project and video of the symposium: http://www.foodbioneers.com. Ian was kind enough to give me permission to use the ‘Following’ paper in the catalogue, containing the papers mentioned above and others.
The outcome of all the discussion and activity with practitioners in a post-discipline environment was overwhelming. It created a new kind of aesthetic encounter. Individual projects were shared in the fields of science, visual art, architecture, graphic design, urban planning, education, theater, sociology, and engineering. Each piece had some aspect of food production, consumption or distribution in mind, but what is remarkable are the dynamic interactions that took place across discipline lines and the cooperative nature of our exchange. Plans were made to begin new projects or collaborate on continuing work. There was an excitement in the air that is difficult to describe, but was definitely felt. Working across disciplines generates a form of excitement and novelty that leads to exploration.
The hurdle now seems to be getting everyone together, which I think this blog addresses. As I’ve read the many posts made by social scientists, it is intimidating at first, because the way I do research is so different than yours, but the ideas generated are worth the risk. There is a forum here to share information and hopefully help one another with our projects– or at the very least, find source material to investigate. In a way, I feel like I’m looking through a keyhole at a completely different world, but on the other hand we all seem to be interested in similar topics. The way we communicate is just a little different. I work with an organic chemist in San Francisco on some of my projects. We started out chatting online and now do most of our work on msn, with occasional face-to-face visits. His expertise in science has helped me to develop two major projects thus far, though sometimes it takes us awhile to explain how each other’s world works in order to make progress. In the end, it’s worth it. Art informed by social science or other fields of study are rich not only experientially, but the finished work is more complex and open to a much larger audience. On the flip-side, I can also see how art may be a useful tool for social scientists, as Ian demonstrated with Shelly’s piece. It seems that both disciplines reach a limited audience and have a tough time affecting real change. Perhaps together we can change that?
At the time ‘Following’ was given to me, I was also working on my MFA thesis project, which brought together a group of artists, scientists, activists, historians and sociologists to examine alternative forms of food production, as well as the stories behind them. My personal project was cloning organic vegetables via an art installation (BioArt), but I was more interested in the conversations surrounding food production/consumption that were taking place in other fields of study. It seemed natural to organize an exhibition and symposium that would address our mutual interests. Some of the participants included sociologist Melanie DuPuis (Angels and Vegetables: The Birth of Food Advice in the US), activist Claire Pentecost (What Did You Eat and When Did You Know It?), artists Claude Willey + Deena Capparelli (Food, Fossil Fuels, and Climate Change: The Bizzare Love Triangle), and Director of the Plant Transformation Center at UC Riverside, Dr. Martha Orozco-Cardenas. The exhibition, “Bioneering: Hybrid Investigations of Food," provided a venue for exploration of the arts through multiple vantage points, also questioning the efficacy of the gallery to discuss social issues. We used the internet to broadcast panel discussions and had them available for viewing in the gallery, as well as performances at the opening reception. A catalogue was produced to accompany the exhibition, with a website for the project and video of the symposium: http://www.foodbioneers.com. Ian was kind enough to give me permission to use the ‘Following’ paper in the catalogue, containing the papers mentioned above and others.
The outcome of all the discussion and activity with practitioners in a post-discipline environment was overwhelming. It created a new kind of aesthetic encounter. Individual projects were shared in the fields of science, visual art, architecture, graphic design, urban planning, education, theater, sociology, and engineering. Each piece had some aspect of food production, consumption or distribution in mind, but what is remarkable are the dynamic interactions that took place across discipline lines and the cooperative nature of our exchange. Plans were made to begin new projects or collaborate on continuing work. There was an excitement in the air that is difficult to describe, but was definitely felt. Working across disciplines generates a form of excitement and novelty that leads to exploration.
The hurdle now seems to be getting everyone together, which I think this blog addresses. As I’ve read the many posts made by social scientists, it is intimidating at first, because the way I do research is so different than yours, but the ideas generated are worth the risk. There is a forum here to share information and hopefully help one another with our projects– or at the very least, find source material to investigate. In a way, I feel like I’m looking through a keyhole at a completely different world, but on the other hand we all seem to be interested in similar topics. The way we communicate is just a little different. I work with an organic chemist in San Francisco on some of my projects. We started out chatting online and now do most of our work on msn, with occasional face-to-face visits. His expertise in science has helped me to develop two major projects thus far, though sometimes it takes us awhile to explain how each other’s world works in order to make progress. In the end, it’s worth it. Art informed by social science or other fields of study are rich not only experientially, but the finished work is more complex and open to a much larger audience. On the flip-side, I can also see how art may be a useful tool for social scientists, as Ian demonstrated with Shelly’s piece. It seems that both disciplines reach a limited audience and have a tough time affecting real change. Perhaps together we can change that?
Monday, September 1, 2008
From Richard LeHeron
Hi Ian and all
First, many thanks to Ian and to the contributors to the blog, for the range of very insightful points posted. I have found them most helpful in clarifying questions, especially around the limits to knowledge production strategies, alternative visions of P-C relations and political and ethical activity generally. Second, I need to declare my post-structural political economy/ecology approach, which I have been working with for most o the 2000s (see Le Heron 2007a for some further thoughts on this). This does mean I keep seeing some old political economy concerns popping up for renewed attention! And a lot of other dimensions too, such as timulating knowledge exchange and different decision making situations, very post-structural stuff. Third, these remarks are a pretty loose set of reflections, but here goes.
I'll open with where I was at in November 2007 (Le Heron 2007b) with respect to following. I had been heavily influenced by Ian's efforts to open up new kinds of spaces in global commodity chains and different kinds of pedagogic practices and so when I found myself thinking through the expansion from New Zealand of Fonterra the big NZ dairy corporate, I began to wonder whether there was merit in using practices of following (at least in the NZ context and current moment) to explore organisations and organisational emergence. This is going beyond ethnography, things and commodities. I led a World University Network seminar that outlined some dimensions that I felt might be productive in terms of following organisations. Since then I have been actively considering following as a problematic, both questioning how we are representing and enacting worlds. Ian and Ian et al. and the PIHG trilogy 'following', 'mixing' and 'afters' has enlarged my understandings, it has brought me up short
I have a number of concerns for the dialogue, mostly different to those posed so far.
What is the institutional and disciplinary context in which the trilogy is set - an arbitrary three years following a journal cycle, or is it more? Is this three-part conception actually limiting where our discussion goes? I believe it is a very valuable way forward in many settings, especially the performative. So, where is the discussion on the internationally significant experiments with cross-boundary dialogue in the UK around agriculture and food? Following attempts to mix, such as RELU or BRASS, would give a different spin on afters. Such questioning may not be the emphasis of the two PIHG papers, but an example of their wider work. Le Heron and Lewis (2007) make some suggestions about considering the changes in curriculum in sub-disciplinary areas mindful of changes in the globalising higher education scene.
Does mixing have more potential to do work if we thought about it more as meeting and working with others? I see mixing as being a metaphor too of contestation, how to work in 'rooms', everyday. Not just lenses, windows, eating others. How have people been trained to think seems to loom large in all this? Much is 'not-mixing' rather than 'mixing'. How do we take and mix Barbas, Bost and Cook et al. and others into decision making contexts, is a challenging question for afters. Again angles on this hae been dealt with in Le Heron (2009).
Why are geographers hesitant to engage with bigger actors in the agri-food scene? A rather different food geography I found myself involved in was a co-presentation at the recent New Zealand Geography Conference. Stuart Gray, a senior manager from Fonterra and I 'followed' Fonterra's development out of NZ by creating a conceptual space that we both inhabited. Through this we looked at all sorts of mixing/non-mixing as Fonterra has engaged via strategic partnerships in different dairy spaces, so reshaping the globalising dairy supply chain.
Afters? I also find myself wondering if this playful idea is shutting down following, as it could imply the end of a meal, in the sense of a stimulus followed by a response.
Where has 'following' been taking me (us), what political/ethical subject positions and subjectivities have I found myself in, through different sorts of interventions (especially beyond text)? This is perhaps the more interesting question that I think should be further addressed. At the moment the discussion has remained in representational space; reporting on the 'how we tried but succeeded/failed' stuff is what is urgently needed. Additional/new/may be trznsformational knowledge, about capacities and capabilities as well.
Cheers
Richard
References
Gray, S. and Le Heron, R. 2008 Globalising New Zealand ? Fonterra and shaping the future New Zealand Geographer Keynote Address, New Zealand Geographical Society conference, Wellington, 3 July
Le Heron, R. (2007a) Globalisation, governance and post-structural political economy: perspectives from Australasia, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48, 1, 26-40
Le Heron, R. (2007a) Following the globalising organisation: towards a politics of emergence, Presentation to World University Network seminar, 6 November, University of Sheffield {pasted below}
Le Heron, R. (2009) Food and agriculture in a globalising world, in Castree, N. Demeritt, D. Liverman, D. and Rhoads, B. (eds) Companion to Environmental Geography, Blackwell, Oxford, forthcoming
Le Heron, R. and Lewis, N. (2007) Globalising economic geography in globalising higher education, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31, 1, 5-12
Following the globalising organisation: towards a politics of emergence
Richard Le Heron
School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science
University of Auckland
and
Leverhulme Visiting Professor
Department of Geography
University of Sheffield
Abstract
I take the idea of ‘following’ and ask what new political and ethical spaces might open up were such a methodology applied to other actors/actants, such as big or small globalising organisations. In doing so, I make a number of connections to wider work on diverse economies and socio-cultural and ecological dimensions. The presentation focuses on actor net-working notions and emphasises structural conditions, connectivities and possibilities, situated contestation over investment in particular contexts involving geographically distributed actors, and in-the-making negotiation of outcomes. In the presentation I work the example of Fonterra (see Campbell and Le Heron 2007; Gray et al. 2007, 2008; Greenaway et al. 2002), the globalising New Zealand dairy co-operative, to illustrate how following the emergence of an organisation and a globalising industry both problematises many conventional assumptions about and strategies for the production of knowledge and at the same time offers multiple sites and issues for new styles of political and ethical engagement.
Sections of the seminar
Background, researchers and introduction
Following as a methodological intervention
Fonterra as a globalising organisation
Followings – relational journeys
Understanding emergence
Towards a politics of emergence
Background to the seminar
The genesis of the presentation is my interest in developing economic geography practices for a globalising world (Le Heron and Lewis 2007). Two influences in particular bear on this interest – the experiences of lived economic geographies in the New Zealand context and my professional engagement with a slowly globalising (as distinct from internationalising) economy geography community. The example of expansion of Fonterra, the New Zealand dairy corporate, has encouraged me to look more closely at how geographers at large might engage with contemporary developments. My post-structural political economy work (Larner and Le Heron 2002; Le Heron, 2006, 2007) leads me to conclude that we need both representational knowledge (which we are good at producing) and performative knowledge (where we have few capacities/capabilities and experience). ‘Following the globalising organisation’ is a contribution in this spirit.
My current understanding regarding food and agriculture
In the 21st century food and food actors are both shaped by, and constitutive of, two mega-regulatory trajectories; political and economic developments in the neo-liberalising global economy and the rise of new moral economies around the rights and responsibilities of individuals and institutions with respect to food. These dynamics and the resulting natures and experiences of food can be understood geographically and historically, as well as materially and discursively. How attuned are we to this new reality when attempting to produce knowledge about food?
The world foodscape is increasingly dominated by globalising entities: big supermarkets; big producers, processors and traders; big public regulators and private auditors; and big citizen and consumer NGO and social movement voices. Focusing on Fonterra in the New Zealand context as a globally interesting illustration makes sense – because of my long association with dairying, Fonterra’s size and global reach and the blend of research expertise brought by various research teams in New Zealand to the ‘followings’ of Fonterra.
Main arguments
A brief introduction to following: Following as a methodological intervention has slowly gained legitimacy within economic geography. Researchers working on agriculture and food and the geography of development have led this initiative. In his recent review, Cook et al. (2006) begins his review by juxtaposing his experiences with Shelley Sacks’s wonderful exhibition, Exchange Values: Images of Invisible Lives, featuring banana growers in the Caribbean that was held in Birmingham in 2004 (which I shared with him on one day), with his own imagining of what one might encounter by going to any supermarket before opening time. Sacks’s point and the one Cook et al. picks up on is voicing … the personal experiences that are hidden and embedded in preparing the world we encounter in daily life. His project is aimed at ‘encouraging people living in different parts of the world to better imagine, feel, discuss, appreciate and maybe try to improve their relations with one another’ (Cook et al., 2006, 662)
Assemblying resources: My view is that following as a knowledge production strategy can be taken further and that there is much available that we can harness for this task. In suggesting that the organisation is a suitable focus I realise that there are risks of black-boxing the organisation. But providing organisations are understood relationally, that is as fields of coalitions, with organisational and geographical reaches that are multi-scalar and changing, then we can use organisations are a vehicle for generating different and diverse points of entry into processes and the nature of connectivity.
Conditions of possibility in knowledge production: Focusing on possibilities is a challenging idea, for at least four reasons. First, it disturbs the notion that the world can be represented in some straightforward, clear and stable way. Second, if there are possibilities then how we move from possibilities to the choice and exercise of an option becomes a central interest in knowledge production. Third, the geography of who and where connected actors are becomes integral to any consideration of possibilities. Fourth, in this rather more complicated field both politics and ethics enters. Both are about influencing outcomes, somewhere, involving people and things and ideas.
Followings as relational journeys
In considering any organisation the organisational and geographical reach will undoubtedly involve a variety of encounters, with connections obvious and less obvious amongst people and places. My suggestion is that thinking of followings emphasises the multi-faceted, open ended and expanding nature of the methodology. One might begin with one focus but find a whole host of additional directions to investigate and fresh possibilities to ‘meet’ others. Using followings as a strategy with respect to Fonterra has been surprisingly effective in explicating New Zealand related connectivities.
Understanding emergence
Why am I arguing that the notion of emergence is so important to any enquiry? The concept implies several things: yet to be completed nature, uncertainties, complexities, interdependencies, constitutive effects. It can also imply in-the-making decisions and constitutive processes, through new new possibilities, from new lines of political and ethical engagement.
Towards a politics of emergence
The italicised word towards highlights the preliminary nature of this direction. Two quotes are especially helpful in opening up the encounters of followings to political and ethical concerns. JK Gibson-Graham and other post-structural political economy style thinkers encourage us to engage in ‘the politics of trying to imagine and practice development differently’ (Gibson-Graham, 2005, 6) (emphasis added as these dimensions are key to taking followings forward). Elsewhere (Amin and Thrift, 2005, 236) contend we widen our horizons, through imagining the ‘possibility of learning from a politics of working through inevitably difficult coalitions’.
Some references
Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (2005) ‘What’s left? Just the future’, Antipode, 220-238
Campbell, H. and Le Heron, R. (2007) ‘Big Supermarkets, Big Producers and Audit Technologies: the Constitutive Micro-Politics of Food Legitimacy Food and Food System Governance’, In Lawrence, G. and Burch, D.(eds) Supermarkets and Agri-food Supply Chains, Edward Elgar, 131-153
Gibson-Graham, J-K (2005) A Postcapitalist Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Gray, S. Le Heron, R. Stringer, C. and Tamasy, T. (2007) ‘Competing from the edge of the global economy: the globalising world dairy industry and the emergence of Fonterra’s strategic networks’, Die Erde 138, 2, 1-21
Gray, S. Le Heron, R. Stringer, C. and Tamasy, C. (2008) ‘Does geography matter? Growing a global company from New Zealand’, In Stringer, C. and Le Heron, R. (eds) Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks, Ashgate, Aldershot, forthcoming
Greenaway, A, Larner, W and Le Heron, R (2002) ‘Reconstituting motherhood: Milk Powder Marketing in Sri Lanka’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20, 6, 719-736
Larner, W., Le Heron, R. (2002) ‘From economic globalisation to globalising economic processes: Towards post structural political economies’, Geoforum, 33, 4, 415-419
Le Heron, R. (2006) ‘Towards governing spaces sustainably – reflections in the context of Auckland, New Zealand’, Geoforum, 37, 441-446
Le Heron, R. (2007) ‘Globalisation, governance and post-structural political economy: perspectives from Australasia’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48, 1, 26-40
Le Heron, R. and Lewis, N. (2007) ‘Globalising economic geography in globalising higher education’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31, 1, 5-12
First, many thanks to Ian and to the contributors to the blog, for the range of very insightful points posted. I have found them most helpful in clarifying questions, especially around the limits to knowledge production strategies, alternative visions of P-C relations and political and ethical activity generally. Second, I need to declare my post-structural political economy/ecology approach, which I have been working with for most o the 2000s (see Le Heron 2007a for some further thoughts on this). This does mean I keep seeing some old political economy concerns popping up for renewed attention! And a lot of other dimensions too, such as timulating knowledge exchange and different decision making situations, very post-structural stuff. Third, these remarks are a pretty loose set of reflections, but here goes.
I'll open with where I was at in November 2007 (Le Heron 2007b) with respect to following. I had been heavily influenced by Ian's efforts to open up new kinds of spaces in global commodity chains and different kinds of pedagogic practices and so when I found myself thinking through the expansion from New Zealand of Fonterra the big NZ dairy corporate, I began to wonder whether there was merit in using practices of following (at least in the NZ context and current moment) to explore organisations and organisational emergence. This is going beyond ethnography, things and commodities. I led a World University Network seminar that outlined some dimensions that I felt might be productive in terms of following organisations. Since then I have been actively considering following as a problematic, both questioning how we are representing and enacting worlds. Ian and Ian et al. and the PIHG trilogy 'following', 'mixing' and 'afters' has enlarged my understandings, it has brought me up short
I have a number of concerns for the dialogue, mostly different to those posed so far.
What is the institutional and disciplinary context in which the trilogy is set - an arbitrary three years following a journal cycle, or is it more? Is this three-part conception actually limiting where our discussion goes? I believe it is a very valuable way forward in many settings, especially the performative. So, where is the discussion on the internationally significant experiments with cross-boundary dialogue in the UK around agriculture and food? Following attempts to mix, such as RELU or BRASS, would give a different spin on afters. Such questioning may not be the emphasis of the two PIHG papers, but an example of their wider work. Le Heron and Lewis (2007) make some suggestions about considering the changes in curriculum in sub-disciplinary areas mindful of changes in the globalising higher education scene.
Does mixing have more potential to do work if we thought about it more as meeting and working with others? I see mixing as being a metaphor too of contestation, how to work in 'rooms', everyday. Not just lenses, windows, eating others. How have people been trained to think seems to loom large in all this? Much is 'not-mixing' rather than 'mixing'. How do we take and mix Barbas, Bost and Cook et al. and others into decision making contexts, is a challenging question for afters. Again angles on this hae been dealt with in Le Heron (2009).
Why are geographers hesitant to engage with bigger actors in the agri-food scene? A rather different food geography I found myself involved in was a co-presentation at the recent New Zealand Geography Conference. Stuart Gray, a senior manager from Fonterra and I 'followed' Fonterra's development out of NZ by creating a conceptual space that we both inhabited. Through this we looked at all sorts of mixing/non-mixing as Fonterra has engaged via strategic partnerships in different dairy spaces, so reshaping the globalising dairy supply chain.
Afters? I also find myself wondering if this playful idea is shutting down following, as it could imply the end of a meal, in the sense of a stimulus followed by a response.
Where has 'following' been taking me (us), what political/ethical subject positions and subjectivities have I found myself in, through different sorts of interventions (especially beyond text)? This is perhaps the more interesting question that I think should be further addressed. At the moment the discussion has remained in representational space; reporting on the 'how we tried but succeeded/failed' stuff is what is urgently needed. Additional/new/may be trznsformational knowledge, about capacities and capabilities as well.
Cheers
Richard
References
Gray, S. and Le Heron, R. 2008 Globalising New Zealand ? Fonterra and shaping the future New Zealand Geographer Keynote Address, New Zealand Geographical Society conference, Wellington, 3 July
Le Heron, R. (2007a) Globalisation, governance and post-structural political economy: perspectives from Australasia, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48, 1, 26-40
Le Heron, R. (2007a) Following the globalising organisation: towards a politics of emergence, Presentation to World University Network seminar, 6 November, University of Sheffield {pasted below}
Le Heron, R. (2009) Food and agriculture in a globalising world, in Castree, N. Demeritt, D. Liverman, D. and Rhoads, B. (eds) Companion to Environmental Geography, Blackwell, Oxford, forthcoming
Le Heron, R. and Lewis, N. (2007) Globalising economic geography in globalising higher education, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31, 1, 5-12
Following the globalising organisation: towards a politics of emergence
Richard Le Heron
School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science
University of Auckland
and
Leverhulme Visiting Professor
Department of Geography
University of Sheffield
Abstract
I take the idea of ‘following’ and ask what new political and ethical spaces might open up were such a methodology applied to other actors/actants, such as big or small globalising organisations. In doing so, I make a number of connections to wider work on diverse economies and socio-cultural and ecological dimensions. The presentation focuses on actor net-working notions and emphasises structural conditions, connectivities and possibilities, situated contestation over investment in particular contexts involving geographically distributed actors, and in-the-making negotiation of outcomes. In the presentation I work the example of Fonterra (see Campbell and Le Heron 2007; Gray et al. 2007, 2008; Greenaway et al. 2002), the globalising New Zealand dairy co-operative, to illustrate how following the emergence of an organisation and a globalising industry both problematises many conventional assumptions about and strategies for the production of knowledge and at the same time offers multiple sites and issues for new styles of political and ethical engagement.
Sections of the seminar
Background, researchers and introduction
Following as a methodological intervention
Fonterra as a globalising organisation
Followings – relational journeys
Understanding emergence
Towards a politics of emergence
Background to the seminar
The genesis of the presentation is my interest in developing economic geography practices for a globalising world (Le Heron and Lewis 2007). Two influences in particular bear on this interest – the experiences of lived economic geographies in the New Zealand context and my professional engagement with a slowly globalising (as distinct from internationalising) economy geography community. The example of expansion of Fonterra, the New Zealand dairy corporate, has encouraged me to look more closely at how geographers at large might engage with contemporary developments. My post-structural political economy work (Larner and Le Heron 2002; Le Heron, 2006, 2007) leads me to conclude that we need both representational knowledge (which we are good at producing) and performative knowledge (where we have few capacities/capabilities and experience). ‘Following the globalising organisation’ is a contribution in this spirit.
My current understanding regarding food and agriculture
In the 21st century food and food actors are both shaped by, and constitutive of, two mega-regulatory trajectories; political and economic developments in the neo-liberalising global economy and the rise of new moral economies around the rights and responsibilities of individuals and institutions with respect to food. These dynamics and the resulting natures and experiences of food can be understood geographically and historically, as well as materially and discursively. How attuned are we to this new reality when attempting to produce knowledge about food?
The world foodscape is increasingly dominated by globalising entities: big supermarkets; big producers, processors and traders; big public regulators and private auditors; and big citizen and consumer NGO and social movement voices. Focusing on Fonterra in the New Zealand context as a globally interesting illustration makes sense – because of my long association with dairying, Fonterra’s size and global reach and the blend of research expertise brought by various research teams in New Zealand to the ‘followings’ of Fonterra.
Main arguments
A brief introduction to following: Following as a methodological intervention has slowly gained legitimacy within economic geography. Researchers working on agriculture and food and the geography of development have led this initiative. In his recent review, Cook et al. (2006) begins his review by juxtaposing his experiences with Shelley Sacks’s wonderful exhibition, Exchange Values: Images of Invisible Lives, featuring banana growers in the Caribbean that was held in Birmingham in 2004 (which I shared with him on one day), with his own imagining of what one might encounter by going to any supermarket before opening time. Sacks’s point and the one Cook et al. picks up on is voicing … the personal experiences that are hidden and embedded in preparing the world we encounter in daily life. His project is aimed at ‘encouraging people living in different parts of the world to better imagine, feel, discuss, appreciate and maybe try to improve their relations with one another’ (Cook et al., 2006, 662)
Assemblying resources: My view is that following as a knowledge production strategy can be taken further and that there is much available that we can harness for this task. In suggesting that the organisation is a suitable focus I realise that there are risks of black-boxing the organisation. But providing organisations are understood relationally, that is as fields of coalitions, with organisational and geographical reaches that are multi-scalar and changing, then we can use organisations are a vehicle for generating different and diverse points of entry into processes and the nature of connectivity.
Conditions of possibility in knowledge production: Focusing on possibilities is a challenging idea, for at least four reasons. First, it disturbs the notion that the world can be represented in some straightforward, clear and stable way. Second, if there are possibilities then how we move from possibilities to the choice and exercise of an option becomes a central interest in knowledge production. Third, the geography of who and where connected actors are becomes integral to any consideration of possibilities. Fourth, in this rather more complicated field both politics and ethics enters. Both are about influencing outcomes, somewhere, involving people and things and ideas.
Followings as relational journeys
In considering any organisation the organisational and geographical reach will undoubtedly involve a variety of encounters, with connections obvious and less obvious amongst people and places. My suggestion is that thinking of followings emphasises the multi-faceted, open ended and expanding nature of the methodology. One might begin with one focus but find a whole host of additional directions to investigate and fresh possibilities to ‘meet’ others. Using followings as a strategy with respect to Fonterra has been surprisingly effective in explicating New Zealand related connectivities.
Understanding emergence
Why am I arguing that the notion of emergence is so important to any enquiry? The concept implies several things: yet to be completed nature, uncertainties, complexities, interdependencies, constitutive effects. It can also imply in-the-making decisions and constitutive processes, through new new possibilities, from new lines of political and ethical engagement.
Towards a politics of emergence
The italicised word towards highlights the preliminary nature of this direction. Two quotes are especially helpful in opening up the encounters of followings to political and ethical concerns. JK Gibson-Graham and other post-structural political economy style thinkers encourage us to engage in ‘the politics of trying to imagine and practice development differently’ (Gibson-Graham, 2005, 6) (emphasis added as these dimensions are key to taking followings forward). Elsewhere (Amin and Thrift, 2005, 236) contend we widen our horizons, through imagining the ‘possibility of learning from a politics of working through inevitably difficult coalitions’.
Some references
Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (2005) ‘What’s left? Just the future’, Antipode, 220-238
Campbell, H. and Le Heron, R. (2007) ‘Big Supermarkets, Big Producers and Audit Technologies: the Constitutive Micro-Politics of Food Legitimacy Food and Food System Governance’, In Lawrence, G. and Burch, D.(eds) Supermarkets and Agri-food Supply Chains, Edward Elgar, 131-153
Gibson-Graham, J-K (2005) A Postcapitalist Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Gray, S. Le Heron, R. Stringer, C. and Tamasy, T. (2007) ‘Competing from the edge of the global economy: the globalising world dairy industry and the emergence of Fonterra’s strategic networks’, Die Erde 138, 2, 1-21
Gray, S. Le Heron, R. Stringer, C. and Tamasy, C. (2008) ‘Does geography matter? Growing a global company from New Zealand’, In Stringer, C. and Le Heron, R. (eds) Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks, Ashgate, Aldershot, forthcoming
Greenaway, A, Larner, W and Le Heron, R (2002) ‘Reconstituting motherhood: Milk Powder Marketing in Sri Lanka’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20, 6, 719-736
Larner, W., Le Heron, R. (2002) ‘From economic globalisation to globalising economic processes: Towards post structural political economies’, Geoforum, 33, 4, 415-419
Le Heron, R. (2006) ‘Towards governing spaces sustainably – reflections in the context of Auckland, New Zealand’, Geoforum, 37, 441-446
Le Heron, R. (2007) ‘Globalisation, governance and post-structural political economy: perspectives from Australasia’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48, 1, 26-40
Le Heron, R. and Lewis, N. (2007) ‘Globalising economic geography in globalising higher education’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31, 1, 5-12
No catchy title, just a last minute post...
As the very last moments to post tick away at my left, I have just a few humble words to add to the wonderful thoughts already shared. The comments regarding the viscerality of food and “following” are of interest to me as I’ve been contemplating a new project along the Santa Ana River Bike Trail in Southern California, the homeless population who live there, native edible plants, and arts events where I work as an artist and curator in Downtown Riverside, California.
How bodies feel food, as mentioned by Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy, among others, make me question the practices of the downtrodden who visit our museum and gallery during art opening receptions. When they come there are a few who line their pockets with cubes of cheese and other buffet fare. Why would someone who gets free food from community services want squares of cheddar? There are two reasons, according to my husband who is a social worker. First is the thrill of taking something that is not yours, or in this case taking more than is socially acceptable. The other is variety. I ponder the luxury of food diversity. It’s something I rarely think about because I have the means to eat pretty much what I please. With the homeless occupying the role of other at these events, can it also be that consuming foods offered at a swanky art opening create a type of interior transformation?
Considering what appear to be elite food fashions (pricey organic foods, other expensive fresh foods from farmer’s markets and Whole Foods Market), I am interested in giving those who live in the riverbed a source of fresh, readily available, novel food that would take the place of art reception refreshments. Native edibles are very trendy at the moment here. California has a variety of native edibles that will grow along the Santa Ana River Trail, close to where the homeless sleep. The gardens I propose will be tended by the cyclists who ride along the trail, with the help of nearby residents. The food following would be a relatively short trip, but interesting to watch as the stories develop in the form of really slow food in a rather tiny geographic region. [for more on the project, see the blog]
I apologize for the sketchy post and nonacademic nature of it. It’s more of a proposition than anything else. I have truly enjoyed reading all of your posts and look forward to reading all of the rich texts cited in the weeks to come.
Lisa Tucker
How bodies feel food, as mentioned by Allison and Jessica Hayes-Conroy, among others, make me question the practices of the downtrodden who visit our museum and gallery during art opening receptions. When they come there are a few who line their pockets with cubes of cheese and other buffet fare. Why would someone who gets free food from community services want squares of cheddar? There are two reasons, according to my husband who is a social worker. First is the thrill of taking something that is not yours, or in this case taking more than is socially acceptable. The other is variety. I ponder the luxury of food diversity. It’s something I rarely think about because I have the means to eat pretty much what I please. With the homeless occupying the role of other at these events, can it also be that consuming foods offered at a swanky art opening create a type of interior transformation?
Considering what appear to be elite food fashions (pricey organic foods, other expensive fresh foods from farmer’s markets and Whole Foods Market), I am interested in giving those who live in the riverbed a source of fresh, readily available, novel food that would take the place of art reception refreshments. Native edibles are very trendy at the moment here. California has a variety of native edibles that will grow along the Santa Ana River Trail, close to where the homeless sleep. The gardens I propose will be tended by the cyclists who ride along the trail, with the help of nearby residents. The food following would be a relatively short trip, but interesting to watch as the stories develop in the form of really slow food in a rather tiny geographic region. [for more on the project, see the blog]
I apologize for the sketchy post and nonacademic nature of it. It’s more of a proposition than anything else. I have truly enjoyed reading all of your posts and look forward to reading all of the rich texts cited in the weeks to come.
Lisa Tucker
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