Thanks to Ian for inviting me to take part in this Blog. My work as a human geographer studying food has concentrated on the practices in the agro-food industry that bring humans and the nonhuman foodstuff we eat in relation to each other. Initially I focused on consumption practices but more recently I have turned to practices within the meat and dairy retailing, processing and production industry particular in the context of farm animal welfare.
To give a little background so people will understand where I am coming from. My earlier work approached the human-nonhuman assemblage in consumption practices through developing the concept of embodied consumption practices (Roe 2006a) where I was particularly interested in the socio-materiality of foodstuffs and the process of meaning-making in the process of things becoming food in the actual eating event and how some ‘food’ fails to become eaten when one studies the embodied practices of eating; this indicated how knowledges in the event gather that may interfere with often conceived stable notions of edibility or inedibility. Importantly, this provided a framework for engaging with the politics and ethics of consumption practices differently in terms of how meaning-making practices form between humans and foodstuff as things categorised as food become inedible or edible when things are actually eaten or not. A methodology of ‘following’ is indeed crucial to the success of this endeavour. This close scrutiny of the socio-material relations between humans and nonhumans disclosed through practices and discourse challenges how we conceive the human and I think this is particularly significant when we consider ‘eating the other’, since I start from a position where the boundaries between the human and nonhuman and for that the human with other humans caught up in the production of food is never fixed as materialities move between bodies (Roe 2006b) and human practices. Subjectivities are assembled as humans and nonhumans together achieve particular ways of being and thinking.
In Ian’s Mixing piece I would urge him to consider corporeally what happens when bodies of food and the eater are mixed-up together. How does this mixing of bodies, mixing of matter pose questions about the pre and post event lives of the bodies involved and the extensive set of ethical relations this material intimacy puts us in? Whatmore (2002) and Stassart and Whatmore (2003) also raise these points in relation to food. Certainly in Western cultures there is a greater discourse around senses of responsibility to your body, those you feed and those people, animals and environment all who are affected by your individual food choices. This anxiety and responsibility about food has been capitalised on by the food retailing industry who have supported the development of a quality driven food agenda (Morgan, Marsden and Murdoch 2006). Food retail brands are bundling different qualities together to form different packages– including organic, natural, animal welfare friendly, traditional, cheap, expensive, or Mexican or Indian for that matter, to make themselves attractive to different consumer bases. So this ‘mixing’ and knowledge circulating about different cultures of quality drives the food retail market to differentiate product lines and to in effect enable them to increase profit margins on these lines which aren’t the cheap commodity products.
Bell hook’s ‘eating the other’ argument in the Mixing paper for me doesn’t work with the way I conceive the human subject, for there is no ‘other’ but rather different configurations of subjectivity. However, one area I think it does speak to indirectly which doesn’t get discussed is the new trend to market foodstuffs on the breed, species or strain to introduce some speciality to the raw material consumed whether its strawberries or beef, rather than pointing out a difference in how a foodstuff has been processed and culturally-named such as Ian’s chappati/tortilla example at the end of the paper. So the hooks quote ‘Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture’ (1992:21) is challenged as we see the ethnicity (if you happy to call it that) of animals and plants enlivening mainstream white culture dishes.
In answer to David Nally’s question about research within ‘alternative economic spaces’, which exposes the hidden exploitation of food that people buy. The work I have been involved with on farm animal welfare is an example of this type of study, although not on the people which seems to be where your interest lies. Nevertheless, I think for many consumers the exploitation of animals is hidden and in many ways receives more attention in the UK than the exploitation of people in the food industry. But then Great Britain did have a Royal Society to protect animals before one protecting children. In our research we took products that carry farm animal welfare claims and worked to understand how and why those products had reached the shop shelf carrying those claim (Roe and Higgin 2008). Through carrying out in-depth interviews with different people in the agro-food network that produces an animal welfare-friendly labelled food product including abattoir staff, retail product specification people, retail staff on product marketing, the retail buyers we have gained a comprehensive picture of how animals are produced and what products from these animals are marketed with claims that indicate the farm animals have been less exploited. This research connects in to any earlier comment but to reiterate and elaborate. The most notable findings are firstly, that the public knowledge of exploitation has spurred some UK food retailer, manufacturing and producer brands to attempt to put improvements in the food production process and then market these as positive brand attributes, one of the motivations notably is higher profit margins for non-commodity product ranges. Secondly, the assessment of these achievements in the UK is monitored primarily through industry bodies and independent animal welfare NGOs who tread a fine line between naïve consumer understanding of farm production practices and meeting consumer expectations (Roe and Bull forthcoming). Thirdly, the retail market for premium products (such as those carrying animal welfare claims) is more limited in scope and size but still has to produce whole animals, as opposed to parts of animals at these improved standards (Roe and Buller 2008). Consequently, there is an excess of higher certified product that cannot be sold as such because different parts of the animal’s body carry different culturally-determined values.
This example illustrates indicates what can be grasped if greater attention is paid to how commercial practices in the agro-food industry can provide hope and insight into how practices are currently shaped ‘for the better’.
Hope this isn't too lengthy.. Apologies that not all the work is fully-published. I even reference a Fact sheet (a nod in the direction of the call of us to communicate to a wider audience) that has been available at European agricultural shows this summer! Hope this work currently in the form of European reports will be converted in to academic papers in the next few years.
Emma Roe, University of Southampton
2006a 'Things becoming food and the embodied, material practices of an organic food consumer'. Sociologia Ruralis 46 (2), 104-121
2006b 'Material connectivity, the immaterial and the aesthetic of eating practices: an argument for how genetically-modified foodstuff becomes inedible. Environment and planning A. vol. 38(3), pages 465-481. Special Issue on Geographies of Biotechnology (edited Emma Roe and Beth Greenhough)
Roe, E. and Buller, H. (2008) Marketing Farm animal welfare. WelfareQualityâ fact sheet. www.welfarequality.net.
Roe, E. and Bull, J (forthcoming) Constructing Quality: UK report.
Roe, E. and Higgin, M. (2008) European meat and dairy retail distribution and supply networks. Welfare Quality Reports No. ?? Cardiff University.
Whatmore, S. 2002 Hybrid Geographies. Natures, Cultures, Spaces. Sage: London
Stassart P, Whatmore S J, 2003, “Metabolising risk: food scares and the un/re-making of Belgian beef '' Environment and Planning A 35 449-462
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