Organic farming: an institutional ethnography

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dc.contributor.authorWagner, Katherine
dc.contributor.supervisorMcMahon, Martha
dc.date.accessioned2008-04-29T20:54:13Z
dc.date.available2008-04-29T20:54:13Z
dc.date.copyright2008en_US
dc.date.issued2008-04-29T20:54:13Z
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Sociology
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis investigates challenges to promoting socially just, locally focused agriculture faced by the organic certification program that now regulates organic farming in British Columbia. This inquiry into how organic certification works is conducted as an institutional ethnography. Institutional ethnography is the methodological foundation of Dorothy Smith’s feminist sociology for people. For the institutional ethnographer, ordinary daily activity is the site for investigation of social organization. Small scale organic farmers who are committed to sustainable, socially and ecologically just agriculture offer a critical standpoint from which to explicate extra-local text mediated ruling relations. This inquiry draws on data from open-ended interviews with farmers and an independent organic certification inspector. From these accounts I begin to address how it is that BC’s organic farming certification program actually enters into and reconstitutes the everyday work of farmers and inspectors. From my findings I argue that corporate interests and a focus on global free trade in organic produce and products increasingly guide the institutional structure of organic certification programs. This in turn moves organic farming out of local, farmer control.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/917
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectinstitutional ethnographyen_US
dc.subjectorganic farmingen_US
dc.subjectfeminismen_US
dc.subjectqualitative researchen_US
dc.subjectsustainable agricultureen_US
dc.subjectorganic certificationen_US
dc.subjectsocial organizationen_US
dc.subjectfood regulationen_US
dc.subjectsocial justiceen_US
dc.subjectecological justiceen_US
dc.subjecttext mediationen_US
dc.subjectneoliberalismen_US
dc.subjectfood localizationen_US
dc.subjectgrassroots movementsen_US
dc.subject.lcshUVic Subject Index::Humanities and Social Sciences::Sociologyen_US
dc.titleOrganic farming: an institutional ethnographyen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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