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]
Sunday, September 7, 2008
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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