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

2002年7月，科罗拉多州格里利市的ConAgra肉类加工厂召回了1900万磅可能被大肠杆菌污染的牛肉。记者们用生动的文字描述了饲养场的恶臭和包装厂的可怕条件，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，成千上万头患疯牛病的牛被宰杀；成千上万的患口蹄疫的羊和猪被宰杀；关于肉类辐照、有机肉类的标签以及进口肉类的安全性等问题也引起了广泛的讨论。所有这些争议都取决于食品生产标准的制定和执行。但是标准到底规范了什么呢？拟议的研究不仅将标准视为技术规则，而且将其视为管理工业部门、企业和人民的道德经济的各个方面（Thompson 1971, Busch 2000）。国家或全球标准如何塑造地方？PI开发了一种标准链方法，从技术委员会的标准生产，通过引入和执行这些标准的全球和国家机构，一直到以肉类为生的人。这项研究将比较两个标准编写机构（食品法典委员会和美国农业部）对科学知识的部署情况。它还将研究新法规如何影响波兰和美国的肉类生产，并探讨它们对两个肉类加工城镇（科罗拉多州格里利和波兰萨诺克）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客观和科学的知识是如何与生产食品的人的当地特定利益交织在一起的知之甚少，这些人被强迫或委托使用标准。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？考虑到企业面临的制度约束，它们如何应对这些标准？标准化的风险不是微不足道的：单一标准的微小变化可能迫使较小的加工商和农民破产（Gmyrek 2001），使较大的生产商损失数百万美元的收入（Wilson和Otsuki 2001），或者沿着工业路线重组食品系统的部门（Busch 1997, Flynn et. al. 1994）。将标准作为道德经济的要素进行调查，意味着不仅要问它们如何塑造大规模经济，还要问它们如何改变工作场所的微观实践。波兰的小农场农场主或格里利的移民肉类加工商如何看待和体验这些全球形式的监管？他们用什么文化资源来修改、抵制或规避监管（Scott 1998）？通过比较由国家社会主义形成的波兰与面临资本主义农业综合企业整合的美国，该研究询问标准如何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、价值观和习惯相互作用。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括对食品安全的公共辩论的贡献（Turner 2001），以及在标准编写过程中包括波兰农民或墨西哥移民工人等代表性不足群体的方法建议。这项研究将与标准制定者分享，希望它也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.