The moral economy of grades and standards
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that grades and standards are part of the moral economy of the modern world, and that they both set norms for behavior and standardize (create uniformity).
About: This article is published in Journal of Rural Studies.The article was published on 2000-07-01. It has received 313 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Generally Accepted Auditing Standards & Standardization.
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01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: In this article, a focus on agriculture brings many standard components of the European philosophical canon into philosophy of technology, such as agriculture is always connected with the production of food and fiber for clothing and other products is also an agricultural activity.
Abstract: Publisher Summary Agricultural scientists—and to a significant degree farmers themselves—are thus inclined to see agriculture itself as a form of technology. It is natural for them to see different cultivars, each having distinct characteristics that make them better or worse for different climates, soils and farming systems, in instrumental terms. Modern agricultural science raises problems for the philosophy of technology that deserve study in their own right. Green revolution crops have been tied to debates over population growth and issues in environmental justice, while there has been widespread moral protest over genetic engineering and so-called “genetically modified organisms” (or GMOs). But of broader interest, perhaps, is the way that a focus on agriculture brings many standard components of the European philosophical canon into philosophy of technology. Such a focus requires a broad understanding of agriculture. Agriculture is always connected with the production of food, but the production of fiber (cotton, wool, silk and linen) for clothing and other products is also an agricultural activity.
6 citations
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that one of the most important contributions of the MSU School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience (MSU-SAGT) was its focus on previously less explored and analyzed roles of technoscience in agriculture.
Abstract: This paper argues that one of the most important contributions of the MSU School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience (MSU-SAGT) was its focus on previously less explored and analyzed roles of technoscience in agriculture. The notion of technoscience was derived from the broader field of Science and Technology Studies, especially from Actor Network Theory. Studies conducted under Lawrence Busch’s direction conceptualized this notion to indicate networks/collectives of human and nonhuman actors implicated in production, distribution and consumption of food. While these studies analyzed the role of technoscience in transforming agriculture, they also examined ethical issues (e.g., social justice and democracy) that arise from the simultaneous restructuring of social relations and practices that redistribute power and profit through various commodity chains. To highlight the contributions of MSU-SAGT to the study of technoscience in agriculture, this paper will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of this line of scholarship by comparing how the notions of networks, actors, and symmetry are used in Commodity Systems Analyses and Actor Network Theory. In our discussion, we will draw empirical examples from our work on rapeseed conducted in the 1990s. We emphasize that the application of the technoscience paradigm with innovative methodological approaches developed at MSU enabled us to problematize and theorize scientific practices in agriculture as ‘politics by other means’. This explicitly raised issues of social justice and democracy as implicated in agrifood practices. This paper will conclude by emphasizing that the MSU-SAGT has stressed the importance of those temporal and spatial dimensions of technoscience politics that simultaneously transform global and local dynamics of agrifood production.
6 citations
Dissertation•
17 Aug 2007
6 citations
Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."
...By analyzing organic standards in this way, we can understand the NOP as part of an agricultural moral economy (Busch, 2000), in which the normative conceptions that define and redefine ‘good’ farmers, ‘good ‘practices, and ‘good’ products are codified and institutionalized....
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...By analyzing organic standards in this way we are able to see the NOP as part of an organic agricultural moral economy (Busch 2000), in which the normative conceptions that define and redefine ‘good’ farmers, ‘good ‘practices, and ‘good’ products are codified and institutionalized, thereby privileging certain actors in the organic marketplace....
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...Just as consumers are required to conform to the modern system of consumption – “consumers of food are required to collect their own goods at supermarkets, stand in checkout lines, while grocery carts to their cars” (Busch 2000) – they will expect “USDA Organic” food to conform to this system also....
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...Recently, sociologists have begun to discuss the concept of a moral economy (Sayer 2000, 2004; Jessop 2003; Busch, 2000), especially in the framework of Polanyi’s analysis of market societies....
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TL;DR: The authors argue that the internal homogeneity in the apple bin mutes politics within retail spaces while increasing its salience between retail spaces, drawing on work on aesthetics and affect, and linking the politics of appearance with supermarket power.
6 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2017
6 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present La Volonté de Savoir, the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality, which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as human sciences, the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the "other" in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.
Abstract: This writer who has warned us of the “ideological” function of both the oeuvre and the author as unquestioned forms of discursive organization has gone quite far in constituting for both these “fictitious unities” the name (with all the problems of such a designation) Michel Foucault. One text under review, La Volonté de Savoir, is the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality. It will apparently circle back over that material which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as “human sciences,” the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the “other” in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.
15,794 citations
"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper
...As Foucault (1977) has suggested, some, perhaps most, of these relations of power are benign....
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Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This article argued that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology, which allowed the formidable expansion of the Western empires.
Abstract: What makes us modern? This is a classic question in philosophy as well as in political science. However it is often raised without including science and technology in its definition. The argument of this book is that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology. This division allows the formidable expansion of the Western empires. However it has become more and more difficult to maintain this distance between science and politics. Hence the postmodern predicament - the feeling that the modern stance is no longer acceptable but that there is no alternative. The solution, advances one of France's leading sociologists of science, is to realize that we have never been modern to begin with. The comparative anthropology this text provides reintroduces science to the fabric of daily life and aims to make us compatible both with our past and with other cultures wrongly called pre-modern.
8,858 citations
"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper
...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e.g., Law, 1994)....
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Book•
01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: In this article, the quandary of the fact-builder is explored in the context of science and technology in a laboratory setting, and the model of diffusion versus translation is discussed.
Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction Opening Pandora's Black Box PART I FROM WEARER TO STRONGER RHETORIC Chapter I Literature Part A: Controversies Part B: When controversies flare up the literature becomes technical Part C: Writing texts that withstand the assaults of a hostile environment Conclusion: Numbers, more numbers Chapter 2 Laboratories Part A: From texts to things: A showdown Part B: Building up counter-laboratories Part C: Appealing (to) nature PART II FROM WEAR POINTS TO STRONGHOLDS Chapter 3 Machines Introduction: The quandary of the fact-builder Part A: Translating interests Part B: Keeping the interested groups in line Part C: The model of diffusion versus the model of translation Chapter 4 Insiders Out Part A: Interesting others in the laboratories Part B: Counting allies and resources PART III FROM SHORT TO LONGER NETWORKS Chapter 5 Tribunals of Reason Part A: The trials of rationality Part B: Sociologics Part C: Who needs hard facts? Chapter 6 Centres of calculation Prologue: The domestication of the savage mind Part A: Action at a distance Part B: Centres of calculation Part C: Metrologies Appendix 1
8,173 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1962
TL;DR: In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism--the organization of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market--as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. Beginning with a discussion of principles of a liberal society, Friedman applies them to such constantly pressing problems as monetary policy, discrimination, education, income distribution, welfare, and poverty. "Milton Friedman is one of the nation's outstanding economists, distinguished for remarkable analytical powers and technical virtuosity. He is unfailingly enlightening, independent, courageous, penetrating, and above all, stimulating."-Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek "It is a rare professor who greatly alters the thinking of his professional colleagues. It's an even rarer one who helps transform the world. Friedman has done both."-Stephen Chapman, Chicago Tribune
7,026 citations
6,926 citations
"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper
...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e.g., Law, 1994)....
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...…of Edmund Stone: Mathematical Instruments are the means by which those noble sciences, geometry and philosophy, are render'd 8As both Rouse (1987) and Latour (1987) have noted, the illusion of universality is constructed by a set of speci"c events and actions that are always local in character....
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