8pgs, This paper addresses the impulse to render systemic food systems issues into stories in light of ongoing challenges such as food scares, food fraud, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Such stories about food systems are seen as embodying the ideal of supply chain transparency currently in vogue and regarded as key to solving food system inequities by shedding light on them. Read in the context of documentary cinematic unveilings of unethical production practices, transparency initiatives of various types, particularly those dependent on the real-time, crypto-ensured storytelling of blockchain and digital twinning technology, would seem to provide a new model of indexicality, a new contract with social reality. However, such tracing systems and the questions they raise instead describe the way in which food—and the land, people and animals who are involved in its production—becomes fodder for various power plays.
Fielke, Simona (author), Taylor, Brucea (author), Coggan, Antheaa (author), Jakku, Emma (author), Davis, Aaron M. (author), Thorburn, Peter J. (author), Webster, Anthony J. (author), and Smart, James C.R. (author)
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
2022-04-01
Published:
Netherlands: Elsevier
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12813
12pgs, We report on qualitative social research conducted with stakeholders in a local agricultural knowledge and advice network associated with a collaborative water quality monitoring project. These farmers, advisors and researchers allude to existing social dynamics, technological developments, and (more general) social evolution which is analysed against a novel analytical framework. This framework considers notions of power, social capital, and trust as related and dynamic, forming the basis of our contribution to knowledge. We then probe the data to understand perceived impacts of the collaborative project and social interaction associated with this research project, which involved cutting edge automated and frequent water quality monitoring that allowed for near real-time access to data visualisation displayed via a bespoke mobile or web ‘app’ (1622WQ). Our findings indicate that a multi-faceted approach to assessing and intervening based on consideration of multiple social dimensions holds promise in terms of creating conditions that allow for individual and group learning to encourage changes in thinking required to result in improved land management practice.
16 pages, via online journal article, Purpose: In this paper, the knowledge dynamics of the farmer–rural extensionist’ interface were explored from extensionists’ perspective with the aim of understanding the matchmaking processes between supply and demand of extension services at the micro-level. Design/methodology/approach: Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with extensionists whom work in the North-Eastern, Argentine provinces. Findings: Two different, general types of knowledge dynamics were identified: one moderately diffusionist, based on a hierarchical relationship and the prioritisation of experts’ knowledge, and the other constructivist, based on horizontal processes of co-construction. Interestingly, some extensionists support beliefs pertaining to both approaches. They also highlight the importance of unceremonious trainings, interpersonal trust and making recommendations that take into account farmers’ rationale. Practical implications: Results show the persistence of diffusionist rural extension and that extensionists have different, even contradictory, extension approaches, which renders inappropriate any attempt to generalise their perspectives. Theoretical implications: This study suggests that farmers’ demand is the result of a constructive, interactive process, and thus is not prior to the interaction between the demand side (farmers) and the supply side (extensionists). Consequently, the knowledge and power dynamics that take place within the farmer–extensionist interface should be considered the nucleus of demand construction and the matchmaking process. Originality/value: This paper addresses the dynamic matchmaking process between supply and demand of extension services at the micro-level, suggesting it is a constructive process and showing the core role played by power dynamics.