Article scientifique

Articles

• When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions
  27 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the “unsustainability” of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In this paper we propose to explore these narratives and to shed light on the explicit -or implicit- epistemological assumptions, mental models, and disciplinary paradigms that underpin those. The analysis indicates that different views and interpretations prevail amongst experts about the nature of the “crisis”, and consequently about the research and priorities needed to “fix” the problem. We then explore how sustainability is included in these different narratives and the link to the question of healthy diets. The analysis reveals that the concept of sustainability, although widely used by all the different communities of practice, remains poorly defined, and applied in different ways and usually based on a relatively narrow interpretation. In so doing we argue that current attempts to equate or subsume healthy diets within sustainability in the context of food system may be misleading and need to be challenged. We stress that trade-offs between different dimensions of food system sustainability are unavoidable and need to be navigated in an explicit manner when developing or implementing sustainable food system initiatives. Building on this overall analysis, a framework structured around several entry points including outcomes, core activities, trade-offs and feedbacks is then proposed, which allows to identify key elements necessary to support the transition toward sustainable food systems.

• The practice and politics of food system localization
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  As an apparent counterpoint to globalization, food system localization is often assumed to be a good, progressive and desirable process. Such thinking rests on a local–global binary that merits closer scrutiny. This paper examines the social construction of “local”, by analyzing the practice and politics of food system localization efforts in Iowa, USA. It argues that desirable social or environmental outcomes may not always map neatly onto the spatial content of “local”, which itself involves the social construction of scale. These contradictions in turn relate to differing political inflections discernible in food system localization. Localization can be approached defensively, emphasizing the boundaries and distinctions between a culturally and socially homogeneous locality needing protection from non-local “others”. But through the experience of new social and gustatory exchanges, localization can also promote increased receptivity to difference and diversity. More emergent, fluid and inclusive notions of the “local”, however, may challenge the very project of crafting and maintaining distinctive food identities for local places. These themes are explored through a case study of food system localization efforts and activities in Iowa, an American state that has been a stronghold of conventional commodity agriculture. Demographic and agricultural histories are drawn on to understand recent food system localization practice that has come to emphasize a definition of “local” that coincides with sub-national state boundaries. The emergence and popularization of the “Iowa-grown banquet meal” and the shifting meaning of “local Iowa food” further illustrate the potential tension between defensiveness and diversity in food system localization.

• Approche sociologique des néophobies alimentaires chez l’enfant
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  À partir d’une interrogation sur les enfants autistes, leurs singularités alimentaires ainsi que les difficultés et les ajustements pour l’entourage nourricier autour des repas, les auteurs, sociologues, questionnent les évolutions du répertoire alimentaire et plus particulièrement la phase de la néophobie. Ce travail examine la simultanéité et la complémentarité des processus de socialisation et d’individuation dans les évolutions des pratiques alimentaires des enfants. S’interroger en articulant les approches psychologique et sociologique permet d’explorer les soubassements des normes. Et aussi de distinguer la perspective phylogénétique à tendance universalisante de la néophobie de l’enfant dans le cadre de l’ontogénèse.

• Power at the table : food fights and happy meals
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  In family meals the normative and the performative are very far apart—though everyone likes to think of the family table as a place of harmony and solidarity, it is often the scene for the exercise of power and authority, a place where conflict prevails. My interest in this topic was sparked by research on middle-class parents’ struggles with their “picky eater” children. Besides narrating the way the dinner table became battleground with their own children, many parents also recalled their own childhood family meals as painful and difficult. From this very narrow focus on family struggles, I expand the discussion to the larger question of why this topic is relatively ignored in social science, and I question the sources of the normative power of the family “happy meal.” The ideological emphasis on family dinners has displaced social responsibility from public institutions to private lives, and the construction of normative family performances is part of a process that constructs different family types as deviant and delinquent.

• The global distribution of acute unintentional pesticide poisoning : estimations based on a systematic review
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Human poisoning by pesticides has long been seen as a severe public health problem. As early as 1990, a task force of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticide poisonings occur annually, leading to approximately 20,000 deaths. Thirty years on there is no up-to-date picture of global pesticide poisoning despite an increase in global pesticide use. Our aim was to systematically review the prevalence of unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP), and to estimate the annual global number of UAPP.
  We carried out a systematic review of the scientific literature published between 2006 and 2018, supplemented by mortality data from WHO. We extracted data from 157 publications and the WHO cause-of-death database, then performed country-wise synopses, and arrived at annual numbers of national UAPP. World-wide UAPP was estimated based on national figures and population data for regions defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

• Should we go “home” to eat ? : toward a reflexive politics of localism
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  “Coming home to eat” [Nabhan, 2002. Coming Home to Eat : The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. Norton, New York] has become a clarion call among alternative food movement activists. Most food activist discourse makes a strong connection between the localization of food systems and the promotion of environmental sustainability and social justice. Much of the US academic literature on food systems echoes food activist rhetoric about alternative food systems as built on alternative social norms. New ways of thinking, the ethic of care, desire, realization, and vision become the explanatory factors in the creation of alternative food systems. In these norm-based explanations, the “Local” becomes the context in which this type of action works. In the European food system literature about local “value chains” and alternative food networks, localism becomes a way to maintain rural livelihoods. In both the US and European literatures on localism, the global becomes the universal logic of capitalism and the local the point of resistance to this global logic, a place where “embeddedness” can and does happen. Nevertheless, as other literatures outside of food studies show, the local is often a site of inequality and hegemonic domination. However, rather than declaim the “radical particularism” of localism, it is more productive to question an “unreflexive localism” and to forge localist alliances that pay attention to equality and social justice. The paper explores what that kind of localist politics might look like.

• Corporate concentration and technological change in the global seed industry
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  In the past three decades, the seed sector has experienced, and is now again experiencing, corporate concentration trends. The fallout of this consolidation is the subject of numerous concerns. However, the seed sector is rather poorly understood. Thus, it is useful to understand it better and to investigate the potential impact on the agri-food chain of the trend toward increased corporate concentration. The first part of this paper presents the main characteristics of the global seed sector, its stakeholders, and its size in the agri-food chain. Next, the corporate consolidation trends of the seed industry over the past two years are examined. The technological evolution of the seed sector is also briefly presented. In the last part of this paper, the fallout of recent mergers and acquisitions in the seed industry are analyzed. Opposing views are expressed on the impact of these mergers and acquisitions in the agri-food chain : while certain stakeholders worry about the risk of food power by the biggest companies, some others expect useful innovations.

• What’s on the menu ? A global assessment of MUFPP signatory cities’ food strategies. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
  23 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Increased recognition of the persistent and interconnected nature of food system challenges resulted in the creation of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) in 2015. MUFPP signatory cities commit themselves to contribute to a better functioning food system by adopting integrated approaches. This study assesses the number of MUFPP cities that have developed food strategies and the choices local policymakers make in the design of these strategies. The results show surprising similarities between cities across regions in terms of goals and instruments. At the same time, local governments clearly put different emphases and seem to vary in policy styles.

• Le genre de l’ivresse. Évolution des consommations d’alcool chez les étudiant-e-s
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Le boire alcoolisé se prête particulièrement bien à une analyse en termes de genre. Cet article examine la construction sociale de la réalité concernant les modalités genrées du boire chez les jeunes, à partir d’une recherche en population étudiante. Entre le toxique et l’aliment, la « culture de l’ivresse » et la « culture du vin », le boire des jeunes et son évolution articulent différentes normes et différents rapports aux normes. L’évolution des rapports sociaux entre les sexes en matière de consommation estudiantine mérite d’être étudiée de près : contrairement aux discours récents de la prévention et de la santé publique mettant l’accent sur l’explosion des consommations chez les étudiants et la dissolution du genre, on observe avant tout le rapport étroit à l’ivresse qui évolue vers la modération et un maintien de la dissymétrie du genre tout au long des parcours de consommation.

• Alimentation et identité entre deux rives
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Que l’on soit né au Maroc ou en France de parents marocains, l’alimentation occupe une place centrale dans le tissage du lien avec ses origines réelles, rêvées ou mythiques. À travers l’analyse de récits de vie de Marocains vivant en France, il s’agit de comprendre comment l’alimentation nourrit les constructions identitaires, individuelles et collectives, comment elle intervient dans la construction de sentiments d’appartenance et d’intégration, et comment elle permet à l’esprit et au corps de s’amarrer à un ici ou à un ailleurs.