CAPÍTULO 3. Interpretación, análisis y comparación de los resultados
3.3 Conclusiones del capítulo
In the construction of an alternative theoretical approach to that of the neo-classical
economics approach, this chapter relies mainly on neo-Marxist and Gramscian
perspectives. However, it has kept in mind possible critiques of such theoretical
perspectives, as well as other insights from poststructuralist and feminist
perspectives. Section 5.1 discusses poststructuralist critiques of Marxism's
structuralist and production-centric tendencies, as well as some main concerns
regarding the importance of values and the sphere of consumption. It also argues that
the Gramscian approach addresses these concerns. Section 5.2 then discusses other
concerns raised by feminist/gender perspectives, particularly regarding structural
oppression based on gender and the role of non-commodified work in the agri-food
system.
5.1) Poststructuralism
Influenced by poststructuralism, the field of sociological agri-food studies made
what is often called "a consumption turn".121 By the late 1990s, there are many
studies which try to pay more attention to a wider range of actors in the agri-food
system. For example, many studies explore the power and influence of retailers and
consumers in agri-food chains, and creations of alternative values and knowledge in
fair trade and organic agri-food network.122The thesis uses some of these studies to
121 For example: David Goodman and E. Melanie DuPuis, “Knowing Food and Growing Food:
Beyond the Production-Consumption Debate in the Sociology of Agriculture,” Sociologia Ruralis 42, no. 1 (January 2002): 5–22; T. K. Marsden and A. Arce, “Constructing Quality: Emerging Food Networks in the Rural Transition,” Environment and Planning 27, no. 8 (1995): 1261–1279.
122 For example: Raynolds (2002); Stewart Lockie et al., “Eating ‘Green’: Motivations Behind
Organic Food Consumption in Australia,” Sociologia Ruralis 42, no. 1 (2010): 23–40; A. Arce and T. K. Marsden, “The Social Construction of International Food: A New Research Agenda,” Economic Geography 69, no. 3 (1993): 293–311.
79 explore hegemony and counter-hegemony in the agri-food system in Thailand in
chapters 4 and 5.
From a poststructuralist view point, Marxist perspectives tend to see
production and labour as the privileged loci of politics and social change, while
consumption is seen as private, atomic and passive.123 A Marxist analysis would
suggest that what seems "political" in the realm of consumption is just bourgeois
ideology. For example, when upper income consumers buy products from niche
markets, the act of buying gives an appearance of emancipation even though it is still
implicated with capitalism.124 Such view can be criticised using poststructuralist
studies which suggest that knowledge and discourse can be linked to the political and
material world. For example, struggles over definitions and certifications of organic
food have political-economic consequences on organic production-consumption
networks. 125 In sum, constructions of values and knowledge in alternative
production-consumption networks, which contest normally accepted productionist
values in mainstream agri-food networks, may bear "the seeds of a political struggle"
that could lead to broader producer-consumer and/or political alliances.126
The critique of Marxism's production-centered approach is useful as a
reminder not to be too narrow-minded and "privilege the agency and power of either
producers or consumers”.127This thesis values the viewpoint that struggles in the
realm of ideas, values and knowledge, can have political implications. However, it
123 Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 31, quoted in Goodman and Dupuis (2002), 9.
124 Goodman and DuPuis (2002), 6-9. 125
See Guthman, “Raising Organic,” (2000).
126 Goodman and DuPuis (2002), 17.
127 S. Lockie and L. Collie., “‘Feed the Man Meat’: Gendered Food and Theories of Consumption,” in
Restructuring Global and Regional Agricultures: Transformations in Australasian Agri-Food Economies and Spaces, ed. D. Burch, J. Cross, and G. Lawrence (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999), 270, quoted in Goodman and DuPuis (2002), 15.
80 frames the issues differently, using Gramscian concepts such as counter-hegemonic
ideas and war of position, in combination with a neo-Marxist analysis of the
hegemonic corporate agri-food system. This is to guard against a generalisation that
all kinds of supposedly "alternative" values and knowledge in "alternative" agri-food
networks hold seeds of structural emancipatory transformations. In other words,
structural analysis serves as a benchmark to evaluate these alternative ideas and
practices; to see if they may be able to influence and transform the hegemonic
system towards more socially and ecologically sustainable directions. As discussed
in section 4.4, one has to look carefully at both ideas and practices in these
alternative agri-food networks to guard against co-optation of oppositions. Some
participants may utilise rhetorics of "alternative" ideas and values, while in reality,
their actions may not deviate from the mainstream. Chapter 5 will discuss in greater
detail how producer-consumer networks are important to counter-hegemonic projects
of the sustainable agriculture movement in Thailand.
5.2) Feminist/gender perspectives
There are some feminist/gender studies which indicate that women are often in
disadvantaged positions in the agri-food system compare to men.128 For example,
women labour in agricultural production is often central and yet invisible (not
acknowledged),129not to mention that women have unequal access to land compare
to men in many places of the world.130 Women also have constrained access to non-
128 Patricia Allen and Carolyn Sachs, “Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food,”
International Journal of Sociology of Food and Agriculture 15, no. 1 (2007), 4; Deborah Barndt,
Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food and Globalization (Toronto, ON: Sumach Press, 1999); Catherine Dolan, “On Farm and Packhouse: Employment at the Bottom of a Global Value Chain,” Rural Sociology 69, no. 1 (2004): 99–126.
129 Allen and Sachs (2007), 5.
130 Bina Agarwal, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); S. Lastarria-Cornhiel, “Impact of Privatization on Gender and Property Rights in Africa,” World Development 25, no. 8 (1997): 1317–1333; Shahra Razavi,
81 land resources such as agricultural production inputs, credit and extension
services,131 while the effects of many neo-liberal and agricultural modernisation
policies have harsher consequences for women in the agri-food sector.132 There are
also empirical studies which suggest that women use their access to agricultural
resources to improve household agricultural productivity and food security, as well
as children's health and nutrition.133 In addition, women might be motivated to social
and political action differently than men regarding environmental problems and
crises.134
These gendered differences in knowledge of the environment, access, and
activism, should be seen as "products of socially and culturally created structural
positions", rather than something which is inherently biological.135 This thesis
recognises that more gendered research on the agri-food system is needed, and
although it focuses its study at the macro level using a neo-Marxist and Gramscian
approach, there is room to integrate gendered perspectives into its framework
through the use of feminist socialists' critique of both capitalism and patriarchy as
the two sources of structural oppression,136 as well as perspectives on non-
commodified work. Studies have noted how rural women often face "double
“Liberalisation and the Debates on Women’s Access to Land,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 8 (December 2007): 1479–1500.
131 A. Peterman, J. Behrman, and A. R. Quisumbing, A Review of Empirical Evidence on Gender
Differences in Non-Land Agricultural Inputs, Technology and Services in Developing Countries. International Food Policy Research Institute Discussion Paper 001003 (Washington DC, 2010).
132 For example: Deborah Barndt, Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato
Trail (UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008); Candice Shaw, “Global Agro Food Systems: Gendered and Ethnic Inequalities in Mexico’s Agricultural Industry,” McGill Sociological Review 2, April (2011), 92-93 and 103-104.
133L. C. Smith et al., The Importance of Women’s Status for Child Nutrition in Developing Countries.
Research Report 131 (Washington DC, 2002); K. Saito, H. Mekonnen, and D. Spurling, Raising the Productivity of Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Discussion Paper 230 (Washington DC, 1994).
134 Paul Robbins, Political Ecology: a Critical Introduction, 2nd ed. (Chicester: Wiley-Blackwell,
2012), 64; Allen and Sachs (2012), 12-13.
135 Robbins (2012), 64. 136
George Ritzer, Sociological Theory, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), quoted in Shaw (2011), 100.
82 burden", which refers to when women are responsible for domestic tasks as well as
being increasingly responsible for supplying a wage to their families. Sometimes
women face "triple burden" when they also have to work on family farmland for
partial subsistence.137 Feminist political economy also draws attention to the
importance of non-commodified work, and the fluidity of the boundary between
commodified and non-commodified spheres within capitalist economies. It also
raises questions on how the reserve army of labour sustains itself. In Southern
Africa, it has been argued that having a plot of land can be considered a form of
social security against the vagaries of wage employment.138 This is an important and
useful perspective when discussing the continuing rural-urban linkages and semi-
proletarian farmers in Thailand. As chapter 5 will discuss in greater detail, the
agricultural sector/rural areas in Thailand often provide social safety nets for low and
semi-skilled workers who migrated to urban area to work, as well as subsidise their
costs of living e.g. through food provision and as places to raise children.
There is not much gendered studies on the agri-food system in Thailand to
build on, but the thesis tries to take notice of gender differences and socially
differentiated groups during field research. While not denying that there are probably
some serious forms of gender inequality in Thai society and in the agri-food sector,
field research in Thailand reveals that many women in the agri-food sector and
counter-hegemonic movements are not barred from leadership positions, whether in
the civil service, NGOs, local politics, or business enterprises. Relative to some other
countries, it is not clear that women in the agri-food system in Thailand are at
137 Barndt (2008), quoted in Shaw (2011), 100.
138 Bridget O’Laughlin, “Gender Justice, Land and the Agrarian Question in Southern Africa,” in
Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question, ed. A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristobal Kay (New York: Routledge, 2009), 204-205.
83 strikingly disadvantaged positions, or that they have different ways of using
agricultural resources compare to men. Chapters 5 and 6 will provide more detail.
Conclusion
This chapter has discussed how mainstream neo-liberal ideology and neo-classical
economic perspectives have influenced the development of the current mainstream
agri-food system. It has outlined an alternative theoretical framework based on neo-
Marxists and Gramscian perspectives, to explain how the current system is linked to
capital accumulation and to expose structural social, political-economic and
ecological problems. With a clear framework to explain structural problems of the
current global agri-food system, one can better identify alternative values,
knowledge, production-distribution practices and governance structures, that address
emancipatory social and ecological concerns. Part 4 of this chapter has discussed
how a reading of Gramsci and Stephen Gill's "postmodern Prince" suggests that
counter-hegemonic movements are likely to benefit from balancing local, national
and global goals in their strategies, and in having diverse and non-centralised
agencies in their movements that share common goals. It has also discussed co-
optation of opposition attempts by neo-liberal forces. Even though the theoretical
framework relies mostly on neo-Marxist and Gramscian perspectives, part 5 has tried
to explain how the thesis takes into account some insights from poststructuralist and
feminist/gender theoretical perspectives. For example, the thesis accepts the
possibility that alternative value creations in organic and fair trade niche markets
could have political-economic consequences, and also tries to be gender sensitive,
84 Overall, this chapter has helped to advance the third main contribution of this
thesis, which is to extend neo-Marxist and Gramscian theories on the agri-food
system. The following chapter will build on this chapter in its exploration of
hegemonic ideas and discourses, production-distribution practices and governance
structures in the agri-food system in Thailand. It will also address local, national and
global linkages in the Thai agri-food system. Empirical exploration in the next
chapter will also support the assertion that the neo-Marxist and Gramscian
theoretical framework outlined in this chapter is relevant and appropriate to the study
85