Food Safety Standards, Scientific Knowledge, and the Moral Economy of Meatpacking

项目摘要0240347“食品安全标准、科学知识和肉类包装的道德经济”，科罗拉多大学伊丽莎白·邓恩2002年7月，位于科罗拉多州格里利的康尼格拉肉类加工厂召回了1,900万磅可能受大肠杆菌污染的牛肉。记者们对饲养场的恶臭和包装厂可怕的条件写了生动的散文，但这只是最近许多被广泛报道的全球肉类加工灾难之一。近年来，数千头疯牛病牛被销毁；数十万头口蹄疫羊和猪被宰杀；肉类辐照、有机肉类标签和肉类进口安全引发了广泛的讨论。所有这些争议都取决于食品生产标准的制定和执行。但标准到底规范了什么？这项拟议的研究不仅将标准作为技术规则进行研究，还将其作为管理工业部门、企业和个人的道德经济的各个方面进行研究(Thompson 1971，Busch 2000)。国家或全球标准是如何塑造当地的？国际标准化组织开发了一种标准链方法，从技术委员会的生产，通过引入和执行标准的全球和国家机构，一直追溯到以肉类为生的人。这项研究将比较食品法典委员会和美国农业部这两个标准制定机构对科学知识的运用情况。它还将研究新法规如何影响波兰和美国的肉类生产，并探索它们对科罗拉多州格里利和波兰萨诺克这两个肉类加工城镇人民的影响。标准化是世界经济治理的重要手段。然而，我们对制定标准的组织所使用的表面上的客观和科学知识如何与在生产粮食中被迫或委托使用标准的人的当地特定利益交织在一起的情况知之甚少。在制定标准的过程中，生产和加工食品的农民、公司和工人是如何代表的？考虑到公司面临的制度限制，他们如何应对这些标准？标准化的利害关系不是微不足道的：单一标准中的微小变化可能会迫使较小的加工商和农民破产(Gmyrek 2001)，让较大的生产者损失数百万美元的收入(Wilson和Otsuki 2001)，或者沿着工业线重组食品系统的部门(Busch 1997，Flynn et.艾尔将标准作为道德经济的要素进行调查，不仅意味着它们如何塑造大规模经济，而且还意味着它们如何改变工作场所的微观做法。像波兰的小农户或格里利的移民肉类加工商这样的人是如何看待和体验这些全球形式的监管的？他们利用哪些文化资源来修改、抵制或规避管制(Scott 1998)？通过比较由国家社会主义塑造的波兰和面临资本主义农业综合企业整合的美国，这项研究询问了标准与积累制度或大规模经济机构模式，以及社会监管模式，或管理个人经济行为的社会规范、价值观和习惯如何相互作用。这项研究的更广泛影响包括对公众关于食品安全的辩论的贡献(特纳，2001年)，以及如何将波兰农民或墨西哥移民工人等代表性不足的群体纳入标准制定过程的建议。这项研究将与标准制定者分享，希望它还将使公共政策认识到标准化的更广泛的社会影响。

PROJECT ABSTRACTSES 0240347"Food Safety Standards, Scientific Knowledge, and the Moral Economy of Meatpacking"Elizabeth Dunn, University of ColoradoIn July, 2002, the ConAgra meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado, recalled 19 million pounds of beef potentially contaminated with E.coli. Journalists wrote vivid prose about the stench of the feedlots and the horrifying conditions in the packing plant, but this was only one of many recent, widely publicized global meatpacking disasters. In recent years, thousands of cattle with Mad Cow disease have been destroyed; hundreds of thousands of sheep and pigs with Foot and Mouth disease have been slaughtered; and widespread discussion has arisen about meat irradiation, the labeling of organic meats, and the safety of meat imports. All of these controversies hinge on the creation and enforcement of standards for food production.But what exactly do standards regulate? The proposed research investigates standards not simply as technical rules but as aspects of a moral economy that governs industrial sectors, firms, and people (Thompson 1971, Busch 2000). How do national or global standards shape local places? The PI has developed a standards chain methodology to trace standards from their production in technical committees, through the global and national institutions that introduce and enforce them, down to the people who make their livelihoods from meat. This research will compare the deployment of scientific knowledge in two standards-writing bodies: Codex Alimentarius and the US Department of Agriculture. It will also examine how new regulations shape meat production in Poland and the United States and explore their effects on the people of two meatpacking towns: Greeley, Colorado, and Sanok, Poland.Standardization is a crucial means of governance in the world economy. Yet, we know very little about how the ostensibly objective and scientific knowledge employed in the organizations that produce standards are entwined with the locally specific interests of the people who, in producing food, are coerced or entrusted to use standards. How are the farmers, firms, and workers who produce and process food represented in the process of creating standards?Given the institutional constraints firms face, how do they respond to those standards? The stakes in standardization are not trivial: a miniscule change in a single standard might force smaller processors and farmers out of business (Gmyrek 2001), cost larger producers millions of dollars in lost revenue (Wilson and Otsuki 2001), or restructure sectors of the food system along industrial lines (Busch 1997, Flynn et. al. 1994).Investigating standards as elements of a moral economy means asking not only how they shape large-scale economies but also how they transform the micropractices of the workplace. How do people such as Poland's small-hold farmers or Greeley's immigrant meatpackers perceive and experience these global forms of regulation? What cultural resources do they use to modify, resist or circumvent regulation (Scott 1998)? By comparing Poland, which was shaped by state socialism, with the United States, which has faced consolidation of capitalist agribusiness, the research asks how standards interact with regimes of accumulation, or large- scale patterns of economic institutions, and the mode of social regulation, or the social norms, values, and habits that govern individuals, economic actions. The broader impacts of this research include contributions to the public debate over food safety (Turner 2001) and suggestions of ways to include underrepresented groups such as Polish farmers or Mexican immigrant workers in the standards-writing process. The research will be shared with standards producers in the hope that it will also introduce into public policy an awareness of the wider social impacts of standardization.