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Beyond the Farm Gate: Production‐Consumption Networks and Agri‐Food Research
Author(s) -
Lockie Stewart,
Kitto Simon
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9523.00128
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , production (economics) , food processing , corporate governance , agriculture , distribution (mathematics) , agricultural productivity , space (punctuation) , knowledge production , food systems , social network analysis , environmental sociology , sociology , regional science , economics , political science , social science , food security , microeconomics , computer science , geography , knowledge management , management , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , law , operating system , social capital
The term agri‐food research has become a convenient shorthand term to describe anexpansion of sociological interest over the last 20 or so years in the relationships between agricultural production and: increasingly industrialized networks of food production, processing, distribution and retailing; the development of transnationalized modes of regulation and governance; environmental discourse, policy and social movements; and competing understandings and uses of ‘rural’ space. This paper critically reviews two theoretical approaches that have challenged the dominant theoretical trends that have underpinned this reorientation of the ‘rural’ social research agenda actor‐network theory and vertical analysis. It is argued that applications of both approaches have frequently failed to transcend the very shortcomings they identify in agri‐food studies, and suggestions are made as to how production‐consumption relationships may be more adequately theorized and investigated.