What makes organic agriculture move: protest, meaning or market? A polyocular approach to the dynamics and governance of organic agriculture

Hugo Fjelsted Alroe and Egon Noe

International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, 2008, vol. 7, issue 1/2, 5-22

Abstract: Many different actors have hopes and aspirations for the future of organic agriculture. They have different perspectives on organic agriculture with different understandings of what it is and what makes it move. Each perspective entails a certain understanding of organic agriculture featuring certain concepts and values and a particular logic or rationality. It is important to acknowledge this heterogeneity when investigating the dynamics and governance of organic agriculture. We suggest a polyocular approach that facilitates a comprehensive and balanced understanding of organic agriculture by enabling us to handle different perspectives reflexively. To illustrate this approach we describe three significant perspectives on organic agriculture based on protest, meaning and market. No perspective is the 'right' one and we claim, different perspectives on organic agriculture cannot be merged to one. We hope that polyocularity as a general analytical tool, and the three specific perspectives, will be helpful in understanding the future development of organic agriculture and how it may be influenced.

Keywords: organic farming; regulation; perspectives; reflexive; actor network; semiotics; conventionalisation; values; organic agriculture; agricultural dynamics; agricultural governance; protest; meaning; market. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=16976 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijarge:v:7:y:2008:i:1/2:p:5-22

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().