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MILJØ2015-Norsk miljøforskning mot 2015

SAMFUNN: Expertise and consumer-power. A project on the technologies of the politics of nature

Awarded: NOK 3.1 mill.

The field of food issues has become a site for certain kinds of political "expertiments", that is for the testing out of new forms of political practice and involvement. These include the establishment of consumer panels, market analyses, and the newly es tablished independent Scientific Committee for Food Safety. Our project seeks to explore how these forms of politics work, and to consider their consequences, through two empirical case-studies of A) the turn to consumers in food policy, starting with the Ministry of Agriculture's consumer panels, and B) the Scientific Committee for Food Safety, its emergence and practice. These are sites of particular interest when the aim is to understand the role of power/knowledge and the user/consumer within the pol itics of sustainable development. Securing a sustainable food production and development is explicity made an overall objective within the new politics of food. The empirical case studies will contribute to the understanding and evaluation of how these n ew and experimental forms of politics work; what happens when they are combined; and wheter and how they contribute to this overall aim of sustainable development. An integrative and network-oriented third subproject C) will locate Norwegian food politics in a comparative context, historically and internationally, through a workshop, a conference, and a publication.

Funding scheme:

MILJØ2015-Norsk miljøforskning mot 2015