Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Actor-Network Study of Artisanal Food Production and Food Safety Regulation

通过制定和实施标准对食品进行管制，对食品质量和食品的经济价值具有重要影响。大多数关于食品生产标准的研究都集中在大规模生产者身上。小规模和本地化农业食品生产的兴起，以及手工生产的相应增加，导致联邦和州食品安全监管机构修订食品生产政策，以鼓励这些新的加工商。然而，这些努力经常暴露出对手工生产的性质和食品安全标准的作用的根本分歧。这些分歧阻碍了关于公共政策回应的辩论。这项研究使用民族志和食品安全检查的实地观察，以及对手工面包和奶酪制造商和检查员的半结构化访谈，以调查这些科学化的政策错配及其可能的补救措施。来自行为者网络理论(ANT)的工具被用来引起人们对协调实践和标准的表面上简单的社会现象的多种方式的关注。这项研究调查了食品安全检查员在监管执法中采取的多种方法，就像手工生产者采取多种方法进行手工操作一样。Ant提供了方法论工具，用于对工匠和检查员之间的互动进行细粒度的探索，这些互动中可能出现的紧张局势，以及关闭和不关闭的方式。这项研究的更广泛影响是通过分析检查期间食品安全法规的实际执行情况来促进食品政策研究，从而增进对这些公共政策工具的理解，并通过分析科学标准如何在实践中运作来促进科学和技术研究。此外，通过将重点放在手工生产者身上，该研究有助于为旨在鼓励和支持小规模和手工农业食品倡议的政策提供信息。最后，通过促进生产者和食品安全检查员之间的接触、合作和相互理解的机会，这项工作丰富了科学、治理和社会之间的关系。

The regulation of food through the creation and imposition of standards has important consequences for food quality and the economic value of food. Most studies of food production standards have focused on large-scale producers. The rise small-scale and localized agrifood production and the corresponding increase in artisanal production has led federal and state food safety regulatory agencies to revise food production policies to encourage these new processors. These efforts, however, frequently expose fundamental disagreements over the nature of artisanal production and the role of food safety standards. These disagreements impede debate on public policy responses. This study uses ethnographic and field observations of food safety inspections and semi-structured interviews with artisanal bread and cheese makers and inspectors to investigate these scientized policy mismatches and their possible remedies. Tools from actor-network theory (ANT) are used to draw attention to the multiple ways the ostensibly simple social phenomena of reconciling practices and standards takes place. The study investigates the multiple approaches that food safety inspectors take to regulatory enforcement, just as artisanal producers take multiple approaches to artisanship. ANT provides methodological tools for conducting a fine-grained exploration of the interactions between artisans and inspectors, the tensions that may arise in these interactions, and the ways in which closure is and is not reached.The broader impacts of this study are to contribute to food policy studies by analyzing the practical enforcement of food safety regulations during inspections, thereby enhancing understanding of these public policy instruments, and to science and technology studies by analyzing how scientific standards operate in practice. In addition, by focusing on artisanal producers, the study helps inform policy that is designed to encourage and support small-scale and artisanal agrifood initiatives. Finally, by fostering opportunities for engagement, collaboration, and mutual understanding among producers and food safety inspectors, this work enriches the relationship between science, governance, and society.