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The Social Construction of International Food: A New Research Agenda

Author(s): A. Arce and T. K. Marsden
Source: Economic Geography, Vol. 69, No. 3, Environment and Development, Part 1 (Jul., 1993),
pp. 293-311
Published by: Clark University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/143452
Accessed: 27-09-2015 13:05 UTC

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 The Social Construction of International Food:
A New Research Agenda
A. Arce
Department of Sociology of Development non-Western, The Agricultural
University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

T. K. Marsden
School of Geography and Earth Resources, University of Hull, Hull, U.K.

Abstract: In this paper, we critically review current debates associated with the
international food system. We then outline a revised set of conceptual and
methodological principles linking globalization to the variable responses of actors
engaged in the production, supply, and transfer of food. We look at the
production of "new" agricultural exports in Chile and food consumption in the
United Kingdom as examples of ways in which networks of value are developed,
while assessing some of the social consequences. The new rounds of
interconnectivity between producer and consumer nations and regions present
opportunities to develop a more comprehensive approach that reemphasizes
spatial and social variability as major characteristics of globalization. In
conclusion, the paper presents some key methodological questions arising from
critical analysis. These contribute to the development of a research agenda for the
international study of food.
Key words: production, consumption, commodification, value, globalization,
commodity relations, food networks, export agricultures.

The diffusion of technologies, together
with high levels of agricultural state
support during the postwar period, pro-
vided the basis for an internationally
based system of intensive food produc-
tion. As in the industrial sector, this
suggested specialized capital inputs and,
it seemed, standardized global markets,
converging production methods, and uni-
formity of product (e.g., Sanderson's
(1986) "world steer"). The changing basis
of state support, higher levels of national
and corporate competition, and the break-
down of mass markets is now making such
interpretations redundant.
The forms of food consumption associ-
ated with delivery, access, and the role
(significance) of food in the reproduction
of everyday life are becoming increasingly
differentiated. Food production rarely
stops at the farm or field gate. In what is
commonly known as "adding value," food
products go through a complex and
diverse set of reconstituting processes
organized at the local and global scale.
Transportation and distribution, for in-
stance, contain different aspects of food
maturation managed under controlled
conditions, while genetic and biotechno-
logical innovations aid the reconstruction
of food freshness, color, and acceptable
shape and size. While some of these
processes are traditional-for example,
curing and pickling-the management of
production time and the sourcing and
supplying of a wider range of food
products now represent a much more
significant element in the food supply
chain.
Production is therefore based less on
land and is less subject to the vagaries of
natural environmental conditions. Land-
based production, while crucial, is only
the start of a long and diversely managed
process. Proportionally, it represents only
a minor part of the total value of the
product in economic terms, while in social
terms a large proportion of symbolic and

293

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294 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
constructed value is added at the process-
ing, distribution, and retail stages. These
stages not only regulate the flow and
direction of products, they also actively
reconstruct them according to different
and increasingly subtle time-quality epi-
sodes. Firms have achieved the ability not
only to control the land-based sectors,
albeit at arm's length, but also to
package, extend, and redirect the produc-
tion time and manipulate the quality and
content of the product. This allows for the
particular regulation of time and value.
Food is purchased on futures markets and
contracts before it is produced, while
transfer to the consumer is designed
according to the need for maintaining
certain prices and supply and demand
relationships. In the case of fresh fruits
and vegetables, there has been a growth
in these supply relationships in the last
decade, whereby freshness and natural-
ness are indeed produced and reproduced
over long distances after leaving the farm.
They are supplied to the prospective
consumer as if they were recently har-
vested goods placed on the supermarket
shelf Value has been added by naturaliz-
ing the product rather than industrializing
it. The life of the product has been
domesticated according to the priorities of
extracting value. Exotic products acquire
an immediacy for consumers in industrial-
ized countries, while also maintaining a
novel aspect. Production time is coordi-
nated, the ideology of healthy eating is
expanded, and, above all, the environ-
mental problems and intensive labor
conditions associated with land-based pro-
duction are distanced. Interconnections
between the promotion of healthy diets in
North America and the intensive produc-
tion systems upon which these depend
are conveniently detached. Time and
space are reconfigured. Such processes
depend on the redefinition of values
(associated with health and freshness in
North America and more intensive and
productivist agricultures in South Amer-
ica), which are progressively commodi-
fled. Traditions and the local meaning of
production and markets themselves be-
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come commodified in new ways at the
transnational scale.
Exploration and identification of institu-
tional, knowledge-based, and power inter-
faces organized in and around the food
sector is a methodological requirement
here. In this context, we argue that the
conventional concept of the food system
fails to incorporate such issues by implic-
itly assuming functional and holistic ap-
proaches. We need instead to examine the
comparative dimensions of the regulatory
forms and networks between different
nation-states (e.g., Mexico and Chile, the
United Kingdom, the Netherlands), the
complex of contractual relations with
multinationals, and the local transforma-
tions experienced in the rural and envi-
ronmental sources of new food commodi-
ties.
The importance of identifying these
relationships lies in focusing attention on
consumption, diversified food sourcing
and production, and cultural contexts.
This raises questions about the incorpora-
tion of global processes of change by social
actors in localities, firms, and institutions.
Increasingly, countries such as Chile play
key roles in satisfying the consumption
styles constructed in North America,
which are now distancing themselves
from traditional "mass" diets. Changing
value-added food consumption patterns in
North America, aggressive corporate pro-
curement by food firms, and more cus-
tomer-designed producer contracts are
increasingly interlinked, with competitive
spheres constantly changing the social and
environmental/rural context. Social actors
drive the pace and direction of these
spheres.
The issues introduced here demand
considerable theoretical and empirical
treatment and debate. The study of the
food sector helps us explore some of the
broader societal processes of internation-
alization and localization. In particular, it
allows a focus on the changing nature of
social organization and the ways in which
social processes reproduce organizational
forms. In this paper we aim to advance
these issues, albeit in a limited way. We
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
attempt this, first, by presenting a critique
of existing literatures in agrariansociology
and anthropology, exploring some of the
critical dimensions in the study of food at
this particular juncture, particularly con-
cerning the concept of commodification
and producer-consumer relations. We
then present case study material about
Chile that exemplifies these issues. This
provides opportunities for methodologi-
cally linking research conducted in both
North and South America, as well as a
better understanding of notions of inter-
nationalization in the food sector.
The General Context of Food
Studies: Reaching the Limits?
A recent concern in rural studies has
been the study of the food system. Since
the 1960s, public awareness in industrial-
ized countries has shown increased con-
cern about the associations between agri-
cultural chemicals, conservation, food,
and health problems. The social distance
between the conditions under which food
is produced and some of those of its final
consumption has grown with the aid of
technological changes, firm concentration,
and value-added processing and distribu-
tion. Public consciousness about the inter-
connections among these processes has
also increased during the last decade.
Publications such as Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring (1965) illuminated public
consciousness about the role of science
and technology in transforming the coun-
tryside and the broader environment.
More recently, Shiva (1991) documented
how the Green Revolution destroyed
genetic diversity and soil fertility in India,
while also contributing to deep social and
political conflicts. The work of Tait (1990)
and Munton, Marsden, and Whatmore
(1990) in Europe have demonstrated that
science and technologies cannot be seen
as benign externalities devoid of social
and political meaning.
These contributions, despite the differ-
ences in chronology and study area,
constitute a body of analysis belonging to
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295
the same broad intellectual paradigm.
They see the modern trajectory of science
and technology lying at the root of
contemporary environmental, political,
and social problems, as well as being a
main force promoting the commoditiza-
tion of food. It is now possible to delineate
various strands of research concerned
with this critical social analysis of food.
First, the agrarian political economy
approach focuses on the relationship
between international food regimes and
agricultural structures. It claims in doing
so to demystify the notion of the world
market by historically comparing major
international food and agricultural re-
gimes (Friedmann 1993; Friedmann and
McMichael 1989; McMichael 1992; Fried-
land 1991). It highlights the formation of
"'commoditycomplexes" (Goodman, Sorj,
and Wilkinson 1987), as well as contribut-
ing to our understanding of the conse-
quences of the new international division
of labor (Sanderson 1985, 1986).
A second, less well-known line of
analysis has taken the enquiry of food
beyond agricultural production. It recog-
nizes that consumer behavior and changes
in the marketing and distribution chains
have to be seen as important points of
entry for an understanding of the food
"context." In this view, a strong phenome-
nological intellectual influence is intro-
duced into the analysis concerning the
importance of changes in the sociocultural
perceptions of food consumption and the
symbolic meaning of food. In this work
meat and organic food (Fiddes 1990, 1991;
Clunies-Ross 1990) have become special
objects of study, along with the reorgani-
zation of distribution systems and the
internationalization of food processing
(Symes and Maddock 1990; Smith 1990).
Marsden and Little (1990, 10) pursue the
range of political, economic, and cultural
issues surrounding the analysis of food
from within the tradition of agrarian
political economy: "We must look beyond
the production process in order to com-
prehend not only the dynamic of capitalist
agriculture but also the complexities of
the contemporary food system."
296 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
Third, Goodman and Redelift (1991)
attempt to transcend the unsatisfactory
limitations of the previous segmented
food perspectives, by generating a "macro-
explanation." As Flynn, Marsden, and
Ward (1991, 161) argue, Goodman and
Redclift (1991) use the food system
approach as a heuristic device, to link "the
accumulation strategies of international
and national capitals to employment and
consumption norms, type of state regula-
tion and legislation, and household liveli-
hood and consumption practices." The
notion of "food system" used by Goodman
and Redclift suffers from what Booth
(1985) has identified as a main problem in
Marxist development theory: metatheo-
retical commitment to demonstrating ne-
cessity in capitalist societies. At the edge
of functionalism, their analysis reifies
social institutions, placing the whole
process of social change (the "refashioning
of nature")largely beyond actors' practices
and control. In this type of structuralist
political economy, there is little room for
accepting the importance of actors' cul-
tural and knowledge negotiations in defin-
ing the meaning of food.
The political economy food system
approach has thus far been double-edged:
while on the one hand it strengthens the
priority for studying changes in North
America, questioning these various forms
of changes, on the other it gives insuffi-
cient attention to the cultural, political,
and economic diversity existing in devel-
oping countries. Indeed, we argue that
the political economy perspective on the
food system has reached its empirical and
conceptual limits. Originating in an evolu-
tionary analysis based on a Wallersteinian
perspective of the world (Wallerstein
1974), it has become somewhat limited in
defining and interpreting contemporary
social and spatial diversity.
Taking Goodman and Redclift's ap-
proach as an exemplar, we see their
analysis of food production and consump-
tion relations as largely confined to
notions of post-Fordism or the "growing
internationalization of commodity ex-
change." By raising issues of changes in
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the labor market, the destruction of
traditional farming, and loss of autonomy
by peasant households (the "passing of
rural society"), their interpretation comes
across abrupt limits in sociological and
anthropological terms. The perspective
fails centrally to place the theoretical
importance of local and regional diversity
in food production and consumption, or to
appreciate the causal significance of spa-
tial and temporal variations. Indeed,
while considerable attention is paid to the
effects of external processes on local
processes, their concern with patterns of
accumulation, institutional developments,
the internationalization of agriculture, and
technological change biotechnologies pro-
vides the basis for a broad systemic
explanation.
The reductionist notion of "system" ac-
commodates any observation about con-
temporary society, whether it be labor
force, gender transformations, household
restructuring, new regimes of capital ac-
cumulation, changes in rural areas, inter-
nationalization of Third World agricultural
production, or the development of new pat-
terns of consumption in industrializedcoun-
tries. This point demonstrates both the ad-
vantages and inadequacies of food system
analysis:it explains everything (holism);but
it closes off a fundamental project in rural
sociology, social science, and environmen-
tal economics, that of reconceptualizing
value in everyday situations (social prac-
tices). Application of the system approach
effectively suppresses the significance of
contextualizedhuman agency-that is, peo-
ple coping with the uneven nature of con-
temporaryeconomic and social change. This
is a central issue in recent debates on com-
moditization and the cultural, institu-
tional, and political analysis of food pro-
duction and consumption. These emergent
concerns, we argue, can contribute to an
important understanding of economic life
and the social basis (cultural, political,
knowledge valuations)of foods as commod-
ities. In short, we argue that systemic stud-
ies of the political economy of food have
tended so far to hide rather than disclose
social differentiation in the value construc-
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
tion of food. Such work grants inadequate
significance to social action in the analysis
of commodities. Actors shape, and are
shaped by, institutions, different styles of
farming, and different ways of consuming.
This constitutes the interface between so-
cial life and commodities, transformingold
values and creating new markets. Com-
modities are produced and consumed in
social contexts; this is critical to their con-
structionand delivery on internationalmar-
kets. At the boundaries of existing political
economy approaches we can begin to iden-
tify some emergent, more accommodating
lines of inquiry worthy of discussion.
Exploring Commodification
These new contributions follow at least
three different analytical lines. The first
was initiated in rural sociology with the
commoditization debate and the writings
of Bernstein (1979), Friedmann (1980), and
Harriss (1982) and the criticism of these
contributions from the Wageningen group
by Long (1986) and Van der Ploeg (1986,
1990). A major concern focused on how to
integrate farmers' variable actions into the
understanding of simple commodity pro-
duction. This debate showed the diversity
of national and regional processes of com-
moditization of agriculture. In addition, it
established the need to theorize cultural
and historical diversity, as well as the im-
portance of differential responses. It illu-
minated the significance and degree of in-
teraction between sets of commodity or
noncommodity relationships. Long placed
the actor-oriented perspective at the cen-
ter of the study of social action and the
issue of active participation of the peas-
antry in different processes of commoditi-
zation. A preoccupation with the peas-
antry's strategic and active role in the
process of commoditization led the Wa-
geningen group to argue that one must con-
sider the views of actors experiencing these
changes (Marsden and Murdoch 1990).
The second contribution concerns that
developed by Appadurai (1986), who,
searching for a new perspective on the
circulation of commodities in social life,
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297
argues for a focus on the things ex-
changed, rather than on forms or func-
tions of exchange. Appadurai proposes
that commodity status is given by the
particular situation of exchange, rather
than by the intrinsic properties of com-
modities vis-a'-vis noncommodities. By
privileging "exchangeability," Appadurai
elaborates three more aspects of commod-
ities: objects can move in, and out of, the
commodity state; commodity exchanges
do not imply a complete cultural sharing
of social assumptions, but rather a mini-
mal agreement in relation to standards
and criteria between contradictory frame-
works of exchange and parties' different
interests; and the commodity context-
that is, the variety of social arenas that
commodities help to link through their
circulation and exchange-is significant.
Appadurai emphasizes the variety of
components constituting the social life of
commodities and the constant tensions
between different exchange frameworks
(price and bargaining, for instance). In this
sense, politics (social relations, assump-
tions, and contests related with power)
links value and exchange between differ-
ent sets of values and specific flows of
commodities. The main point is that any
attempt to theorize the issue of commod-
itization must lay the groundwork for a
discussion of the politics of commoditiza-
tion. According to Appadurai (1986),
politics is the property that socially
constructs a given flow of commodities in
a given situation. It is the main facilitator
in organizing temporal compromises be-
tween the "socially regulated path and
competitively inspired diversions" (1986,
10) of commodities.
The third contribution, developed more
recently, is connected with current de-
bates within environmental economics.
Traditionally, environmental effects have
often not been directly captured in prices
and therefore have failed to influence
decision-making processes based on the
market. Yet, environmental economists
have recently sought to "value"these effects
in order to provide better guidance for
public decisions. In other words, they
298 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
have tried to establish ways to value
externalities, making them internal costs
of future (ex ante) development. In rural
development, priority has been given to
identifing the externalities for, say, differ-
ent farming systems. This is difficult,
given that farmers may view and respond
to such externalities differently. The form
and content of the environmental "values"
and how they relate to the social context is
problematic. Four interrelated ideas are
used in this approach: (1) sustainable
development, (2) the valuation of environ-
mental assets, (3) the importance of
environmental accounting, and (4) the use
of market incentives.
This work has been criticized by Jacobs
(1992) as exemplifying the orthodoxy of the
positivist economic neoclassical school,
which he sees as still a dominant dis-
course. He argues that the neoclassical
school overtly commoditizes the environ-
ment. By contrast, he argues, economic be-
havior is culturally determined and insti-
tutionalized in society. Governments,
regulation, and property rights are not mar-
ket imperfections but rather the very struc-
tures that allow markets to operate (see
Bromley 1991). Thus, economic tastes and
preferences are endogenous to economic
processes and should be the objects of eco-
nomic analysis.
Such arguments question the basis of
neoclassical valuation of the environment.
Is it possible to divide the environment
into goods and services, or to give these
imputed prices by constructing supply
and demand curves, turning these into
real prices and creating markets for them?
Jacobs argues that such valuations misrep-
resent people, because they are consumer
preferences only in constricted money
terms. Arguing against moralist, as well as
neoclassical, assumptions, he points out
that people may want to protect the
environment for a variety of reasons.
Tastes or wants in society should not be
seen as economic exogeneities," but as
important aspects of changes in society
(social internalization).
These critical assessments demonstrate
how neoclassical economics adds abstract
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criteria of value in the measurement of
economic performance and public goods.
In so doing, neoclassical economics attains
relevance precisely by disaggregating na-
ture and environmental values. This point
is relevant in understanding how pre-
scribed food studies have been in perceiv-
ing the food issue. Food quality has
become a public issue because it has
been socially constructed by different
interests, knowledges, and practices.
These operate across important contem-
porary disjunctures existing between peo-
ple's experiences, economic valuations,
cultural meanings, and political action.
Food or environmental issues cannot be
wholly explained by disaggregating them
either to a functional side effect or as
separated, exogenous price-elastic compo-
nents.
These three critical lines of analysis
suggest that, while somewhat disparate
progress has been made, major tasks
remain in defining a more rigorous and
productive agenda in the field of food
studies. In particular, we have to prob-
lematize heterogeneity in social forms and
practices, while ascribing to them theoret-
ical significance at higher levels of analy-
sis.
Critical Appraisal and Rebuilding
Conceptual Parameters:
The Case of the "New" Export
Agriculture, or "Yes, We
Have No Bananas"
The approaches mentioned thus far
have been developed largely in an unen-
gaging way. Such a lack of engagement
has tended to compartmentalize and
oversimplify the significance of a more
social life-based approach and to focus on
the practices of actors, attempting to
define the context in which commodities
circulate and acquire their different val-
ues in modern life. This means that while
food production and consumption are
essentially socially constructed activities,
organized by a series of discontinuous
valuation processes and conflictual social
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
relationships, such features have been
largely obscured rather than illuminated
in contemporary lines of inquiry.
A critical point here is that the pro-
cesses of food production, delivery, and
consumption are highly contingent and
reliant on delicately balanced alliances
and social and economic arrangements.
These conditions are created from inher-
ent social and spatial interconnections
operating at local, national, and interna-
tional scales. These are constituted by the
nature of the exchanges that occur within
the market and by the constant tension
between different interests involved in
reproducing the frameworks of value. The
social life of commodities can achieve
fragile and temporary operational links
and interfaces, achieving value through
the politics of everyday life.
We can illustrate some of these ideas by
briefly presenting a public controversy
concerning bananas in the United King-
dom in April-May 1992. In this value-
issue controversy, different actors at-
tempted to impose their own values on
the banana, in order to secure other
actors' passivity. However, these actions
triggered a sequence of further actions by
the people affected. The effect was a food
commodity (the banana) loaded with
different values (i.e., value contestation).
This situation allows us to see how actors'
identities were renegotiated according to
the existing political, cultural, and social
environment, with important implications
for the people producing bananas and for
the relationships between the state, su-
permarkets, and consumers.
On behalf of consumers, retailers
launched a campaign highlighting the
nutritiousness of bananas. The first point
in this information campaign was to
emphasize its "statisticalreality."The Brit-
ish were not consuming enough bananas.
They stressed that British consumers
were consuming a third less than their
German counterparts. Supermarkets em-
phasized two notions of value: (1) the
intrinsic value of the banana on nutritional
and health grounds: there is no better way
to start the day than eating a banana with
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299
cereal; and (2) the banana was overpriced
in the market. The "overvalued" price of
the banana was thwarting demand. Con-
sumers were being denied the choice of
incorporating more natural goodness into
their everyday diet.
The overvalued price of the banana in
the British market was explained as a
historical consequence of the days of
colonialism. More specifically, by the end
of the 1850s and beginning of the 1860s,
the Caribbean countries found that their
main export crop, sugar cane, was being
outcompeted in the international market.
The British established a new colonial
cash crop, the banana. This venture has
been successful because protectionist
measures have insulated the Caribbean
producers from competing with their
larger Latin American counterparts.
The retailers argued for an end to
protective policies and for bringing free
competition into the banana trade. This
conflicts somewhat in purpose with the
European Community's attempts to stim-
ulate EC banana consumption. They
believe that with competition the price of
the banana will drop and the market will
expand. On the other hand, Caribbean
countries feel vulnerable, knowing that
they cannot compete on equal terms with
their Latin American producer counter-
parts. They argue that it is a moral duty
for the British government to maintain
protectionist policies in favor of Carib-
bean banana producers. The Caribbean
representatives have strongly emphasized
the need to maintain the aims of the
Commonwealth. The political nostalgia of
past colonial relations have been used
effectively to counterattack the present
moves for liberalization of trade relations.
The powerful retailer lobby argues that
political independence should have oc-
curred long ago. Caribbean countries
have no right to expect preferential
treatment in the United Kingdom internal
market. While they recognized that ba-
nanas are important commodities in the
economy of the Caribbean countries, it is
not the responsibility of the United
Kingdom consumer to subsidize Carib-
300 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
bean development. Overseas develop-
ment is the responsibility of the govern-
ment, not consumers.
The banana debate represents ques-
tions about which sets of interests and
actors are responsible for overseeing and
protecting consumer values and interests:
central government agencies, Caribbean
trade associations, the food retailing sec-
tor, or consumer associations (Which
1992). Retailers, by focusing their con-
sumers' interests, have managed to politi-
cally and economically use these contra-
dictory frames of values coexisting in
commodities such as the banana. Further-
more, by using some of these values and
criticizing others, they are attempting to
establish a different value frame for the
banana, as something distinct from the
values attributed by the Caribbean pro-
ducers and the British government.
The banana, as an icon of the global
fruit trade, is an example of how commod-
ities go beyond being simple objects.
Rather they are based on social and
political conflicts located in an interna-
tional situation of exchange. Whether
under "free"or state-regulated trade, accu-
mulation of capital will still occur, but the
outcome holds different consequences for
local producers. For instance, if super-
markets regulate bananas, they will intro-
duce a free banana trade policy, creating
new competitive space. The international
banana market will create competition
and conflict not only between producers
in the Caribbean and Latin America, but
also between producers of agricultural
commodities that traditionally served dif-
ferent markets from within the European
Community, Latin America, and the
Caribbean.
Clearly, these arguments support the
need to conceive of food production and
consumption not just as a generic neces-
sary process of capitalism. Rather, by
privileging diversity at the macro level in
food analysis, an understanding of the
different existence, development, and
transformation of different food (value)
trajectories is required. That is, how is
value in food constructed and transferred
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globally, nationally, and locally? What
interests and agencies influence these
processes? Placing emphasis on the prac-
tices of strategic and local actors in
shaping these processes means that we
have to observe how different sets of
people and agencies are trying to define
the production and consumption of food.
Moving from the notion of food as a
system, it becomes essential to identify
the cultural, political, and economic con-
figuration of elements that allow the
various food production contexts to
emerge. For example, there are major
differences in the composition and func-
tion of production units among Mexican
and Chilean producers of fresh vegetables
and fruits, and therefore considerable
difficulties in defining these variations
using the universal concept of food
system.
We increasingly encounter the need to
look at the responses of producers and
consumers from an active rather than
passive perspective. The international
market, technology, and taste demands
enter the world of local producers and
consumers, opening up or restricting
economic choice. New conditions and
specifications are processed and internal-
ized by the local populations-that is,
they integrate themselves into the process
of refashioning nature. They retain a
degree of relative autonomy and discre-
tion to continue their control over the
social properties of their own reproduc-
tion and organization of labor, while
opening or sealing off specific social
practices and resources, so that a certain
local distinctiveness is recognized at the
international level. This latter point pro-
vides the necessary shape or profile of
how some localities draw upon cultural
traditions and social and physical factors
to reconstruct an exchange situation (val-
ues) for the production and consumption
of food.
In parts of Mexico, export agriculture
has expanded and become an important
element in the strategy of economic
recovery. Moreover, there is considerable
debate as to its effects. The work of Rama
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
(1985) suggests that export agriculture has
evolved from comparatively crude efforts
to gain private profit into more sophisti-
cated forms of agricultural production
managed by "techno-science" and up-to-
date forms of administration. Barbier
(1989), in the Indonesian context, down-
plays the negative environmental conse-
quences. Export agriculture may become
an important mode of transformation for
the localities. Previous research (Arce
1990) indicates that there has been a
process of spatial integration over the last
decade, into the export-oriented networks
of fruits and tomatoes for the U.S. market.
Over a short period of time, in the valleys
irrigated by local rivers, a diversity of
small and medium-scale producers and
local private entrepreneurs backed by
foreign contacts and capital have ventured
to satisfy the demands of the U.S.
consumer market.
In 1982, parts of western Mexico
witnessed the inauguration of a cycle of
melon and watermelon production bring-
ing foreign companies into direct contact
with local producers. The local view of
nature was dramaticallytransformed, with
a shift in the perceived value of rain, the
soil, and clean water. This process stimu-
lated the manufacture of new local mean-
ings, such as the regional celebration of
the melon and yearly masses to worship
watermelons. These festivities incorpo-
rated local people, their political institu-
tions, and the Catholic church into
relations with American export compa-
nies, regional entrepreneurs, and Mexican
beer and soft drink companies based in
Guadalajara.The latter usually provided
financial sponsorship for these celebra-
tions of new social practices and mean-
ings. Although the bonanza ran only for a
short period, it did manage to establish
among local people a new reality for the
exchange of agricultural commodities,
constituted by the increasing importance
of cash in the local economy. Neverthe-
less, this process of commoditization of
social relations is revealed in a new
situational logic and in the emergence of
new bodies of knowledge, and not just in
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301
the logical drives of capital profitability.
We need to delineate the ways in which
diverse and long-distant localities, almost
on a daily basis, socially reconstruct the
exchange context of certain types of food,
using a post-traditional range of ideas and
social practices associated with current
volatilities between local and international
markets. Such concerns do not refute the
significance of accumulation and profit-
ability. Nevertheless, they enhance our
understanding of the substantive meaning
of the economic life of food production
and consumption (Polanyi 1957).
At the heart of the study of food is the
recognition that its production and con-
sumption is associated with a variety of
social contexts built in and around mar-
kets, households, and the state. Indeed,
the interaction of these traditionally clas-
sified spheres helps to construct and
maintain value. People's everyday lives
are socially constructed by modifying
these connections between their individ-
ual lives and international processes.
People experiment with their social prac-
tices, and they are able to introduce
temporary interfaces across the spheres of
economy, culture, and politics.
Exploring the Politics of
Commoditization: Creating Taste in
Consuming Countries
The restructuring of food consumption
concerns how the social disjunctions
between food, culture, and politics have
been linked and reorganized in industrial-
ized societies. In industrialized and mid-
dle-income countries more people now
purchase their food from supermarkets. In
the United Kingdom, for example, five
retail multiples (Sainsbury's, Tesco, Safe-
way, Argyle, and Asda) account for 62
percent of total retail food sales. Super-
markets reinforce the importance of con-
sumerism and choice in modern societies.
This context has facilitated a situation
where consumers' choices are not just
directed to save money but generally to
allow them to superimpose on the market
302 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
their high and low standards of quality. In
this sense, food purchases are associated
with quality of life, the appearance of the
food, and the actual environmental con-
text in which the food is purchased and
consumed (see Lave 1986).
Clunies-Ross (1990), examining the pro-
duction of organic food in Britain, argues
that although supermarkets do not pay
high prices for products and their cos-
metic quality demands are very strict, for
producers the advantage is that they sell
large quantities. Most fresh vegetables
and fruits from Latin America are mar-
keted through supermarkets. By stimulat-
ing consumer choices through advertising
and diffusion of information (knowledge),
they have been at the forefront of the
fresh vegetables and fruits market expan-
sion in Europe and the United States
(Wrigley 1992). In order to reformulate
the value relations between changes in
patterns of consumption, taste, knowl-
edge, and price, supermarkets must vary
their products and promote individual
choice.
The strategies of retailers have been
significant in encouraging people to con-
sume (particularlyexotic) fresh vegetables
and fruits in Britain. Nevertheless, it must
be emphasized that consumers cannot be
considered passive subjects who simply
respond to advertising inputs. The emer-
gence of various consumer organizations,
demanding safer and better-quality food,
shows that the process is interactive.
Supermarkets make strict demands on
farmers, processors, and distributors to
time the supply of food at the right
quality, appearance, in the correct volume
and price. They are concerned to be seen
to be responding as sensitively as possible
to consumers' demands.
The overall pattern of British consump-
tion of fresh vegetables and fruits has
shown a secular upward trend since the
1970s, contributing significantly to a wid-
ening trade gap by the early 1990s. The
consumption of beef and veal fell by 19
percent during 1980-86. Fiddes (1990,
230) suggests that these trends can only
be understood in relation to "the cultural
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context of the ideas that inform individual
actions." Food selection is an ideological
process (1990, 230). Changes in consump-
tion are contextualized in the ideas and
awareness of people. The question here,
then, is what are the key ideas that have
triggered changes in consumption pat-
terns? Arising out of this question is the
process of social definition and the extent
and significance of cultural, political, and
economic perceptions.
The social significance of the environ-
mental agenda is an expression of the new
interactions among economy, culture, and
politics. This recognizes, on the one hand,
the cultural and environmental conse-
quences of modern relationships with
nature (Goodman and Redclift 1991) and,
on the other, that at an individual level
the meaning of trust and risk are embed-
ded in the consequences of modern life
(Giddens 1990) and on the regulatory
process of food in a period of public
critical assessment of modern farming
practices (Flynn and Marsden 1992). In
advanced societies the public is gaining a
new understanding of the importance of
diet and health. This knowledge is cou-
pled with more general concerns about
the environment. Some groups are also
starting to reject the ethic that has
allowed an unrestrained exploitation of
nature.
These concerns have been fueled by a
series of food scares in Britain (salmonella
in eggs, listeria in cheese, and contami-
nated prepared frozen foods) and by
complex cultural, political, and knowledge
associations. For instance, beef consump-
tion has been linked with people's fears of
farm chemicals and biological inputs, the
effects of cholesterol on heart disease,
and, more recently, the bovine spongi-
form encephalopathy (BSE), the "mad cow
disease." This has reinforced the social
need to consume green commodities.
At one level the green representation of
health and food has been effective,
because it has linked, culturally and
politically, the importance of green issues
to the everyday life of people. But, as
Fiddes (1990) argues, health as a rational,
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
scientific pursuit, controlled by experts,
has always been too distant from individ-
uals' everyday practices. The green repre-
sentation cannot alone account for new
consumer patterns of consumption. Fid-
des suggests that the contemporary con-
cern for health expresses a rejection of our
traditional cultural beliefs and relation-
ships with animals. The meaning of
healthiness, calorie and cholesterol con-
trol, and fears of chemical residues needs
to be interpreted in the wider social
context, where new social and moral
values are challenging the unrestrained
exploitation of the natural (both physical
and biological) environment. In this con-
text, fresh vegetable and fruit consump-
tion is an expression of how people are
internalizing their meaning of nature. At
the same time, it reflects how issues of
health have come to public attention
without the technical mediation of health
and environmental experts.
The environment, as a public issue in
industrialized countries, has thus been
socially constructed around a range of
issues. Food consumption is one of these.
Information about the production and
content of green commodities in super-
markets has created a new cultural
landscape, where grapes, apples, pears,
peaches, plums, and wine from Chile,
tomatoes, melons, and watermelons from
Mexico, and snow peas, broccoli, and
parsley from Guatemala, surround people
with new meanings, associating exotic
places (the effects of tourism), different
types of values, and what people in
industrialized societies believe is natural
and green.
The new sociocultural perception of
nature in industrialized societies, and the
growing importance of retail outlets as a
field of situated activity that transforms
relations between individuals and nature,
has acted to promote new consumption
patterns. Consumers demand information
about the environmental performance of
commodities, about the use of animal
testing, and the implications for personal
health.
These new types of consumption em-
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303
body ideas that can persuade producers
and business through consumer pressure,
because the market must respond to
consumer demands. A more conscious
consumerism depends upon the ability
and knowledge of consumers to choose
from a range of similar products and make
decisions according to increasingly high
standard criteria. Consumers' social prac-
tices today often go well beyond the
traditional and slow-moving government
regulations for safe food consumption (see
Flynn, Marsden, and Ward 1991; Flynn
and Marsden 1992). This leads to greater
opportunities for public anxiety about
standards and greater market competition
by retailers concerning the insurance of
quality rather than just aggregate supply
management. These forms of consumer-
ism are activated by representations as to
the way people should live with regard to
health standards and the environment.
Consumption is thus influenced by repre-
sentations of life-style. An active and
conscious consumerism can organize
product boycotts (potentially severely
depleting market exchange) while actively
explaining to bystanders the reasons for
such actions.
The ability to distinguish quality com-
modities is based on information and
knowledge drawn from political and cul-
tural dimensions of the consumer prefer-
ences. The exchange process and context
has become the relevant feature in
socially defining items as commodities in
industrialized societies. A product's mone-
tary value is increasingly associated with
consumer knowledge about the commod-
ity in question, the existing institutional
regulations allowing consumers to exer-
cise their preferences, high quality stan-
dards, and eventual nonmonetary valua-
tions. If this interpretation is even
partially correct, it would appear that
"rationaleconomic choice" explanationsare
now, more than ever, outmoded in
dealing with contemporary commodity
valuation in industrialized societies. The
managers of the marketing departments of
the retail multiples are only too aware of
this.
304 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
These sociopolitical processes of global
food reorganization affect Third World
localities directly. Changes in consumers'
perceptions of nature, health, and tastes
generate a scalar dynamic that motivates
different types of responses at local levels.
In the next section, we look at the sig-
nificance of the internationalizationof fruits
and vegetables in Chile, as a case of non-
traditional commodities, setting a context
for proposing a new integrated approach
to describe and explain the circulation of
food commodities (fruits and vegetables)
in contemporary social life. This perspec-
tive opens up opportunities for the study
of the new attribution and exchange of val-
ues in contemporary society, reconstitut-
ing the existing social boundaries between
producers and consumers, while also al-
lowing us to accommodate the social con-
sequences of changes in the patterns of
consumption. Such an approach needs to
analyze consumers' and producers' worlds
and their identification and analysis of the
different valuations embodied in the pro-
duction and consumption of fruits and veg-
etables.
The "Nontraditional" Food
Commodities: Creating Cash in the
Chilean Case
The sustainability of the new agro-
export ventures in Latin America is
increasingly being brought into question
(Sanderson 1986; de Janvry and Sadoulet
1989; Redclift 1989). Current and pro-
jected policy regulations and consumer
pressures in industrialized countries de-
mand high quality standards, while the
economic and social effects of the reces-
sion in the United States and Europe
point toward instability in their farming
sectors.
Political confrontations of local Chilean
growers within the international food
context may be seen as representations of
conflicting global interfaces between dif-
ferent sets of values (i.e., from different
complementary to competitive contexts).
The international food context is mani-
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fested by Florida vegetable growers vis 'a
vis Mexican producers and Californian
producers vis 'avis Chilean fruit growers.
This produces vulnerability and intense
competition.
This restructuring dynamic shows the
need to observe and analyse the relations
between agro-export ventures from Latin
America and the more sensitized segmen-
tation of food markets in North America
and Europe. This demands year round
new quality standards for vegetable and
fruit production. High quality standards
in food markets has forced transnational
companies, major supermarket chains,
and farmers to compete for access to
quality production points for fresh vegeta-
bles and fruits. Where these cannot be
found, they are constructed, given the
particular social, political, and environ-
mental conditions.
Distant places of production are once
again brought together into a network
where diverse environments interact, this
time through the actions of a corporate
food industry. This objective is far from
that of producing the homogenized "world
steer" (Sanderson 1986). Rather, it is
necessary to provide a whole range of
differentiated food commodities as if
instantly harvested from the local field for
the suburban and urban platter.
The food industry has been able to
coordinate heterogeneous climates, re-
gional biodiversity, seasonal variations,
and technological improvements to satisfy
the taste and quality demanded by
consumers in industrialized countries.
The development of marketing and distri-
bution systems has unevenly bridged the
discontinuities in time and space between
patterns of supply and demand. This task,
in the case of fresh vegetables and fruits,
results in the use of special packing
systems to retain freshness, by reducing
transportation costs and time. The stan-
dardization of production processes spec-
ify cultivation practices, international
quality standards, and market criteria.
Global circulation of food has evolved as a
complex, overlapping, assymetrical net-
work. It cannot be understood in terms of
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
existing center-periphery models. Nor is
it clearer with regard to the notional
push-and-pull dynamic (migrationmodels),
surplus and deficit trade, or simple
consumer-producer models.
In a world where there is an increasing
complexity in the exchange of values
embedded in commodities, the terms of
trade between countries are complicated
by political, cultural, and expert images of
risk. Chile is a case in point, as a main
producer of grapes and apples for the
American consumer market in 1987.
Chilean fruit standards and quality were
proffered and accepted by U.S. retailers.
In March 1989, the Food and Drug
Administration found cyanide in some
Chilean grapes. This situation immedi-
ately ruined Chilean exports in 1989,
producing financial losses of over three
hundred million U.S. dollars to Chilean
producers. Some months after the inci-
dent it was found that the grapes had
been accidentally contaminated in a U.S.
laboratory. The Chilean producers have
been unsuccessful in trying to force the
Food and Drug Administration to recog-
nize its mistake, delaying any payment of
compensation. This clearly demonstrates
the vulnerability of a country like Chile.
This case illustrates the vulnerability of
international markets to "laboratory inci-
dents" or political manipulations, which
can restrict trade and damage a particular
nation, state, or region. It is noteworthy
that this particular incident occurred just
when the Chilean military junta was
undecided whether or not to continue its
transition to democracy. Within Chile,
the accident was interpreted as a clear
sign that the United States was supporting
a change from authoritarianismto democ-
racy.
Undoubtedly, we need to focus on the
social organization of the food context and
the ways this establishes preconditions for
particular types of agrarian development
in Latin America. Whether the new local
and international entrepreneurial net-
works are flexible and durable enough to
avoid the uncertainty and volatility of the
international food markets is a salient
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305
question. To what extent Latin American
entrepreneurs can avoid risks and maxi-
mize the market options open to these
food products is difficult to judge.
According to a 1990 Inter-American
Development Bank report, Latin Ameri-
can countries have undertaken major
policy initiatives to expand exports and
reduce the vulnerability of their tradi-
tional exports. This process of export
diversification initiated during the 1980s
is different from that implemented in the
1960s. Then, the export policy was di-
rected toward shifting the export of
primary commodities to that of manufac-
tured goods. State protection was seen as
the umbrella providing a more homoge-
neous internal growth for the economy. In
the 1980s, the policy of export diversifica-
tion using international investments and
local comparative advantages initiated
new penetration of economic sectors. One
sector was agriculture. The international
perceived demand for fresh fruits and
vegetables generated a social dynamic,
whereby the production of nontraditional
food commodities such as grapes, apples,
pears, peaches, tomatoes, melons, water-
melons, snow peas, broccoli, parsley, and
wine became valuable, and therefore
economically dynamic, food commodities.
They represented the flagship of Latin
American export diversification.
In Chile, the value added by agricul-
ture to the national account (the average
annual growth rate in 1968 millions of
dollars) was 3.9 percent during 1981-89,
just 1.9 percent within the decade 1961-
70, and 2.2 percent during 1971-80. The
Chilean case has been presented in
development economics as one of the
most successful experiences in this type of
export agriculture. During the period
1985-86 agro-export activities in Chile
were reported to contribute 27 percent to
the total of its foreign currency earnings.
By 1987 the main international market
for Chile was the United States, consum-
ing 53.9 percent of its fresh vegetables and
fruits, followed by Holland (17.7%), Saudi
Arabia (6.2%),United Kingdom (4%),Italy
(3%), Germany (3%), the Arab Emirates
306 ECONOMicGEOGRAPHY
(2%), Belgium (2%), Sweden (2%), and
other countries (8%).Chile is the most im-
portant agro-exporter producer country of
Mediterranean vegetables and fruits in the
Southern Hemisphere. According to Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) fig-
ures, in 1991 alone Chile produced 50 per-
cent of grapes, apples, pears, and peaches,
surpassing countries such as Argentina,
South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.
There are currently some 250,000 per-
manent occupations and 300,000 tempo-
raryjobs provided by export agriculture in
the Chilean agricultural sector. While the
expansion of jobs in agro-export activities
is dependent on the expansion of export
volumes, some important changes already
have occurred. One of the most significant
is the incorporation of women into the ag-
ricultural labor markets. Women consti-
tute 60 percent of the labor force in vine-
yards, orchards, and packing plants. This
has important social effects for child care
and domestic reproduction.
There is no doubt that the dynamism of
Chilean agro-export agriculture is a direct
legacy of the authoritarian Chilean state,
its privatization programs (Yotopoulos
1989; Gomez and Echenique 1988; Silva
1987), and the implementation of neolib-
eral policies (Van de Valle 1989). In
addition, the maturing of investments
made during 1986, when numerous plots
of land were purchased, established new
financial networks and initiated fruit
growing for export markets (for a com-
plete description of this process see
Gomez and Echenique 1988).
The military government's privatization
of national assets such as forests, and the
partial rollback of land reform, amounted
to the reprivatization (Yotopoulos 1989,
689) of formerly public goods. Different
sets of values were imposed on the
agricultural sector. The effect of these
new valuations reinforced the commodifi-
cation of Chilean agriculture. They im-
posed serious social costs on the economy
and exposed existing land ownership
patterns to the discipline of particular
international market conditions.
By 1979 about one-half of the beneficia-
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ries of land reform had lost their access to
land (Foxley 1982; French-David 1983).
Rapid decapitalization of the traditional
wheat, oil seeds, and sugar beet producers
occurred, due to open competition with
agricultural products from the European
Community and the United States and the
liberalization of the financial sector. At this
stage this was attracting cheap foreign
credit. Given these circumstances, agricul-
tural producers were forced to sell or lease
their farms. After the recession of 1982-
83, the government finally introduced an
economic adjustment program (Moran
1989). Emphasis was given to export in-
centives and trade restrictions. Among the
new economic measures was a strengthen-
ing and reorganizationof the state's export
development agency, PROCHILE. The
state measures generated positive results
(Moran 1989). During 1984-86 agricul-
tural exports increased by 19 percent per
year, compared to an 8.4 percent increase
during 1980-84. Summarizing the situa-
tion, Moran (1989, 495) states: "While no
direct evidence is available, there are in-
dications that investment in export-ori-
ented activities -particularly in fruits, for-
estry, agro-industry, and mining-have
increased at a significant pace in the last
few years."
While there is a growing consensus that
the new frameworks of value have been
introduced to the Chilean countryside by
the regulated path of neoliberal state
policies, there is little evidence about the
social refashioning of rural Chile itself.
Peasants expelled from their old places of
residence have been forced to reorient
their local stock of knowledge around the
new frameworks of value.
Cruz and Rivera (1984) have shown in
their analysis of peasant life histories how
rural producers' descriptive knowledge
generate mental constructs. These are the
consequences of tensions between the
practical aims of individual rural produc-
ers, their pasts, and the more recent
engagements in different frameworks of
capitalist valuation. Actors' perceptions
are spatially and temporally located in the
producers' regions and are confronted
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
with how other actors and members of
society socially construct, present, and
struggle for their own interests. It is in
internalizing these different frames of
valuation that rural reality is continually
shaped and transformed by the struggles
of its actors.
Below we delineate five new interre-
lated rural local processes affecting the
context for social action in rural areas.
(1) The Role of State Policies. Transfor-
mations in Chilean agriculture have been
a direct result of state economic adjust-
ment policies that aimed to strengthen
the production of tradeable commodities.
The policy instruments used by the
military junta to mobilize production
factors into agriculture consisted mainly
in a reversal of the agrarian reform land
distribution program, and in facilitating
the context for an accelerated capitalist
modernization of agriculture. These two
processes were possible because power
distribution was strictly controlled under
an economic neoliberal framework of a
particular economic valuation. Since 1973
massive expulsions of peasants occurred,
followed by the exclusion of permanent
workers who previously lived on the
farms. These policies created a pool of
proletarian laborers constantly searching
for employment. The opening of the
Chilean agricultural market to food im-
ports finally led to a decrease in basic crop
production and a crisis of the residual
agricultural sector. The final significant
change was achieved through the strict
control of a credit policy. The agrarian
situation changed in 1986, when financial
groups began to buy agricultural land and
organize the production of vegetables and
fruits for the export market.
(2) The Nature of the Labor Market
Changes. The agro-export activities have
produced important changes in the agri-
cultural labor market. Rodriguez (1987)
found in 1985-86 (in seven production
units specializing in fruit-growing in the
Aconcagua Valley) that during the two
months of maximum employment (Janu-
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307
ary-February) the ratio of temporary new
to permanent workers was 5:1. In the
months of least activity (May-September),
the ratio was reversed. In periods of high
labor demand large numbers of urban
students and women joined in harvesting
activities and fruit-packing. One of the
most significant phenomena of agro-ex-
port activities was the incorporation of
large numbers of women into the labor
market.
(3) The New Urbanization and Prole-
tarianization of the Countryside. Peasants
expelled from their homes have settled in
small poblaciones outside the agro-export
units of production. These settlements are
established on marginal public lands,
sometimes on abandoned railway stations,
around their former villages or on the
edges of towns. In 1980, the population of
these small rural shanty towns was esti-
mated to be between 200,000 and 250,000
families. This constitutes approximately a
population of one million people who
have initiated a process of Third World
"urban-development" of the countryside.
These settlements, without adequate
basic services, and with more than 55
percent of their labor population working
as temporary workers in the fruit export
sector and another 45 percent working in
the informal sector or dependent on the
minimum government employment pro-
grams, today constitute one of the new
social and environmental features of the
agro-export policy in Chile (Cruz and
Rivera 1984; Ortega 1987; Campana 1988;
Gomez and Echenique 1988; Martinez
and Suvayke 1990; Rodriguez 1987). The
populations of the new settlements have
urban patterns of consumption, consume
mainly commercially prepared food, and
use modern systems of transport to
commute to their agriculturaljobs.
(4) The Development of Industrial Pro-
cessing of Food Consumption. The stimu-
lus for the development of industrially pro-
duced food for mass consumption began in
1987. The state program to feed schools,
nurseries, and orphanages was privatized.
308 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY
The initial contract was awarded to an eco-
nomic group associated with a supermar-
ket chain, with investments in fruit-export
activities. In subsequent years, other groups
have competed for the contracts to supply
food to hospitals and public and private
offices.
While there has been a long tradition of
consuming pasta and canned food, the
association between supermarkets and the
indigenous production of food for mass
consumption is a relatively new develop-
ment. The main potential market is
consumers who can no longer produce or
prepare their own food in their house-
holds. Food consumption has increased as
a proportion of their total expenditure,
and as the standard of living has deterio-
rated, food consumption has also changed
in content. These trends have been
assisted by the incorporation of women as
workers in the agro-export sector and the
dramatic changes that have occurred in
food retailing.
(5) Transformations in the Traditional
Agricultural Landscape. Agro-export pro-
duction has transformed the landscape of
rural Chile. The search for increased
economic benefits has forced local entre-
preneurs to replace traditional fruit vari-
eties with faster-growing trees, especially
in the irrigated and more-productive
agricultural areas. The introduction of
expert agricultural technical systems re-
moved many of the local environmental
constraints by reducing the logistical
difficulties of controlling traditional tree
varieties, while increasing homogeniza-
tion of tree production. The design of
efficient systems of fruit production has
allowed the domestication of trees to
fulfill the tastes and standards required by
the international market.
Social processes such as reverse migra-
tion have reorganized rural space, with fa-
miliar urban social consequences: growth
of job insecurity in the countryside; indi-
vidual and group responses to seasonal ru-
ral unemployment; renegotiation of house-
holds' roles in the context of agro-export
activities; redefinition of marital and fam-
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ily relations in the changing economy; re-
conceptualization of agriculturalwork, new
attitudes to the countryside in terms of
work, occupational identity, and images of
nature.
The construction of highways facilitates
the transport of fruits to ports and has
speeded the process of modernization in
at least two ways. First, it has facilitated
circulation of the labor force; and second,
it has enabled the separation of the social
link that existed until the 1970s between
place of residence, family farm labor, and
self-reliance and self-valuation. Never-
theless, people have remained active in
trying to solve their own problems
through interpersonal networks, local so-
cial relationships, and nongovernmental
institutions, either as individuals or in
groups. They have far-from-passively
adapted themselves to these changes.
Conclusion: From the Chilean
Case to the Articulation of
Competitive Production-
Consumption Spheres
In general terms, the interaction be-
tween specific cases of food production
and the larger global context is a relevant
field of study. This focus should aim to
understand how specific cases in develop-
ing countries define and contextualize
situations generated by the international
demand for vegetables and fruits. In this
sense, we need to focus on the study of
specific international articulated spheres
and networks of food production and
consumption (e.g., British consumption of
fruits and Chilean production of fruits).
This provides a broad analytical device to
study new networks. It should allow us to
incorporate the social life of commodities
and see how they are constituted through
actors' social practices, everyday experi-
ences, and actions.
The example in the paper of five
interrelated processes in local rural Chile
is important to the extent that they cast
doubt on the perceived systemic quality
of international food. Variations in agricul-
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL FOOD
tural development (e.g., the Chilean case)
and processes of food production and
consumption are irreducible to systemic
explanations. Systems analysis cannot ex-
plain the social terms and definitions of
the production and valuation of food. In
this sense, we have to disentangle the
notion of the increasing interconnectivity
of firms and people in the new period of
globalization (see Giddens 1990) from the
deterministic and functional assumptions
this may all too easily suggest.
In the case of Chile, a distinction must
be made between the intentional and
unintended effects of neoliberal economic
government policies. While the neoliberal
policy incorporated new frameworks of
values into rural social practices and
produced dramatic transformations, other
changes were the unintended conse-
quences of the policy and the direct result
of people acting to solve their own
problems, or trying to reorganize their
social lives, or even trying to resist the
new agro-export dynamic. In this sense
our attention to the increasing intercon-
nectivities of global food networks needs
to incorporate the relocalization tenden-
cies and consequences directly engen-
dered by them. The social displacement
experienced by some subgroups of the
local population represent major impacts
of international networks.
Implicit here are several notions that
need to be used in the analysis of food
production and consumption. These in-
clude the socially mediated processes of
production and consumption of commodi-
ties, interfaces of different values in
commodities, actors' internalization of
new cultural perceptions of health and the
environment, and the unintended social
consequences in those localities produc-
ing international food commodities. An
important point here is that actors from
industrialized and developing societies,
through their practices and interaction
with their local environment and culture,
create temporary and fragile bridges
across international value networks. They
unequally exchange values internation-
ally.
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309
Such a critical analysis is necessary in
order to build empirical operationaliza-
tion.' We need to establish methodologi-
cal and conceptual platforms upon which
new empirical studies may be developed.
Briefly, we need to consider a number of
questions: (1) How can we empirically
study the disarticulated spheres of pro-
duction and consumption in different
fresh fruit and vegetable sectors? (2) What
are the networks of engagement between
these spheres and how sustainable or
reproducible are they over time and
space? (3) How can we link social action
with corporate strategy? What are the
parameters of this collision? (4) What new
parameters and measurements can we
attribute to the values of production and
consumption? Who holds the power to
socially define these values? (5) How can
we link more clearly socially specific
aspects of change to broader levels of
international analysis? (6) What are the
social rules operating in international food
markets and how do these influence their
actor networks? (7) How are local produc-
tion and consumption spaces linked inter-
nationally and what social and knowledge-
based networks help to sustain these? (8)
How do different types and spatial scales
of regulation influence the corporate food
sector, both within and between regions.
These questions will require considerable
effort in developing robust, transferable,
and comparative methodologies that will
uncover the social practices involved in
these international processes.
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