Innovating food, innovating Europe? Exploring technology, Europe-making and citizens as co-creators in the food initiative EIT Food.

该研究项目通过食品创新探索欧洲身份的愿景，以及如何在流行的公民参与计划的时候进行谈判。食物是文化和民族认同的关键因素，反之亦然，从比利时啤酒到法国美食。与这种将食物标准化为“正宗”文化遗产的趋势相关，技术改造，如转基因食品，导致了对“适当”食物概念的争议。政治家们经常抱怨这种趋势是对食品行业或更广泛的科学技术“缺乏信任”。大量的统计数据-例如，50%的欧洲人超重（世卫组织，2013年：7）-转化为理想的、健康的公民和可持续未来的规范制度。“食品创新”已成为许多政策和公司议程中的解决方案，而公众参与计划则被视为缓解这种“缺乏信任”的方法。欧洲联盟最近发起的旗舰倡议“欧洲食品创新与技术研究所”，是试图刺激科技创新和公民参与的一个主要例子。作为所谓的KIC -知识和创新社区-它反映了欧盟资助整合工业，研究机构和大学的最新趋势，以及接受公众的同时愿景，在这种情况下，通过摄取的方式：该研究项目提出了一个为期3年的多地点人种学研究在三个EIT食品地点（慕尼黑、鲁汶、伦敦）探讨创新和食品专业知识的概念如何与欧洲性、知识性和公民身份的具体愿景共同产生，以及这些愿景如何在这个大型欧盟项目的沟通和教育计划中进行谈判。沿着这一建议，我的目标是询问以下相互关联的问题：（1）如何通过“创新”的手段EIT食品想象和制定一个健康和可持续的，从而欧洲的饮食文化？(2)EIT Food如何将食品专业知识和食品素养概念化，公民如何应用自己的经验和专业知识？(3)最后，公民被期望作为“共同创造者”，如何在这些食品创新过程中构成“良好的欧盟公民”？为了回答这些问题，该项目使用了社会文化人类学和科学技术研究（STS）的理论和方法论方法，这两个领域涉及知识和技术秩序变化中的文化凝聚力和转型问题。这项研究建立在当前为期一年的EIT Food公众参与项目的基础上，我是该项目的首席研究员。沿着沿着三个民族志领域，这样的分析提供了关键的观点，科技进步主义的必要性，欧洲通过食品和创新，以及公众参与和审议的实际途径。

This research project explores visions of European identity through food innovation, and how these get negotiated at a time of popular citizen engagement schemes. Food is a key ingredient of cultural and national identity, and vice versa, from Belgian beer to the French Cuisine. Related to this trend to standardize food as ‘authentic’ cultural heritage, technological modification, such as genetically engineered food, has led to contested conceptions of ‘proper’ food. Politicians often moan this trend as ‘lack of trust’ in the food industry, or science and technology more generally. A wealth of statistics – e.g. 50% of Europeans being overweight (WHO 2013: 7) – get translated into normative regimes of desirable, healthy citizens and sustainable futures. ‘Food innovation’ has emerged as solution in many policy and company agendas, while public engagement schemes are heralded as approaches to alleviate this ‘lack of trust.’ The European Union’s recently launched flagship initiative European Institute of Innovation & Technology of Food, EIT Food, is a prime example for trying to spur both technoscientific innovation and citizen participation. As so-called KIC – Knowledge and Innovation Community – it reflects a recent trend in EU funding to integrate industry, research institutions and universities, and a concurrent vision of an accepting public, in this case by way of what gets ingested: technologically enhanced food.The research project proposes a 3-year multi-sited ethnographic study at three EIT Food locations (Munich, Leuven, London) to explore how notions of innovation and food expertise are co-produced with specific visions of Europeanness, knowledgeability and citizenship, and how these visions get negotiated within this large-scale EU project’s communication and education schemes. Along this proposal, I aim to interrogate the following, interrelated questions: (1) How does EIT Food through the means of ‘innovation’ imagine and enact a healthy and sustainable, and thereby European food culture? (2) How is food expertise and food literacy conceptualized at EIT Food, and how do citizens apply their own experiences and forms of expertise? (3) Finally, with citizens expected to act as ‘co-creators,’ how is ‘good EU citizenship’ constituted in these food innovation processes?To answer these questions, the project uses theoretical and methodological approaches both from Sociocultural Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) – two fields concerned with questions of cultural cohesion and transformation in changing knowledge and technological orders. The research study builds on insights from a current one-year EIT Food public engagement project of which I am the principal investigator. Along three ethnographic fields, such analysis offers critical perspectives on imperatives of techno-scientific progressivism, Europe-making via food and innovation, and practical avenues for public participation and deliberation.