The Right to Certify? Mobilising for the Self-Certification of Food

With growing concerns over the quality of what we eat, food has moved to the centre of questions over governance and sovereignty. However, in mainstream studies of food and activism, a focus on culture, identity and the creativity of ethical activism still often forecloses the capacity to address broader issues of governance.

Following Bourdieu's (2014) call to consider resistance as a lens to understand the evolution of contemporary forms of power, this project investigates innovative political activism relating to the right to certify food. The rapidly growing network of independent small-scale farmers 'Genuinely Clandestine' (GC) throughout Italy promotes alternative, 'participatory self-certifications' of so-called 'genuine' local food chains. Created in 2010 as an ironic 'anti-logo', the label GC has expanded to a national network throughout Italy. With the GC label, groups organise markets, festivals and events selling deliberately local products that do not conform to current food safety regulations. In contrast to depersonalised, top-down certification practices considered as driven by agribusiness interests, 'participatory self-certifications' are set up locally in consumer-producer assemblies. As a particularly rich laboratory of food politics, for decades Italy's cultural capital has been considered an incubator for similar vanguard food movements that have spread around the world, including Slow Food, local food chains and resistance to EU regulations. However, the proliferation of alterative certifications differs radically in scope and objectives from previous forms of rural resistance; it challenges the right of state authorities to certify, addressing a key issue of contemporary governance. This form of activism is likely to spread internationally over the next years.

Based on observational methods and participatory cinema, this project unfolds around an in-depth ethnographic fieldwork related to the micropolitics of participatory self-certification. We will consider these within their broader web of relations with consumers, authorities and producers. In practice, who takes decisions? Who contests them? What new challenges pose self-certification to the authorities? The fieldwork will allow us to address broader questions of what these novel forms of activism tell us about changing forms of sovereignty, how is 'trust' in products produced; and, how social relations between consumers, farmers and producers are reconfigured.

The innovative potential of the project derives from the approach to situate the political challenge posed by the proliferation of self-certifications within a theoretical framework that combines writing on food activism with critical studies of policy. By re-framing the understanding of food activism in relation to wider issues of governance and sovereignty, rather than in terms of identity and culture, we will question the implicit assumption in the literature on food and activism of a growing unidirectional normalisation of everyday life and its evolution towards multiple, contested forms of standardisations. In addition, this theme will highlight the role of rural peripheries as laboratories for political innovation, often considered in mainstream literature as static and back-warded.

Embedded in activities of the European network Anthropology and Social Movements (founded and coordinated by the PI) and building upon relations developed in a ESRC interdisciplinary study, the results of this research will be delivered in form of one ethnographic monograph to a prestigious university press and in form of a major interdisciplinary research article. In addition, we will produce a documentary in order to disseminate the researchfindings. In addition, we will work with a coalition of policy makers that elaborates a vanguard legislative initiative for the Italian parliament, drawing on self-certifications as a means to lift bureaucratic burdens of small-scale farmers.

Our project will aim to have an impact on (1) independent small-scale farmers and food producers members of the network 'Genuinely Clandestine' (GC) in Italy, (2) high profile agricultural policy-makers who currently elaborate vanguard initiatives to recognise self-certifications as a means to lift bureaucratic burdens for farmers, including legislative change, (3) food activist networks across Italy and the UK, and (4) policy makers of the Food Standard Authority (FSA) in order to learn from 'good practices'.

1. Most immediately, the project will raise the visibility of independent small-scale famers and food producers in Italy who are part of the GC network. The long-term fieldwork will give producers and farmers the opportunity to carefully voice their concerns. Research subjects will be involved in the production of a documentary, a monograph and a research article, as described in the pathways attachment. The outcomes of the project offer opportunities to inspire and motivate activism and foster new collaborations between farmers, consumers and policy-makers alike.
2. The project outcomes aim to influence policy makers involved in a landmark initiative that aims to recognise simplified 'participatory self-certifications'. These will facilitate the possibilities for independent small-scale farmers to sell their products, simplifying current EU regulative burdens. The project team will collaborate closely with key-figures of the Italian Confederation of Farmers (CIA), one of the largest EU agricultural associations (see LoS) and their coalition of policy-makers that includes Members of the Italian Parliament and agricultural associations interlinked with the GC network. As a timely and unique policy experiment, it might well become a future model for other EU countries. Currently the initiative does not rely on detailed scientific insights into the potential and limits of self-certifications, but exclusively on activists voices. As outlined in the Pathways document, the research team will deliver its findings on the potential and limits of self-certification in a dedicated policy paper. Thus, the research offers the opportunity to shape next generation food regulations.
3. Through the proposed debate and screening sessions, participating UK activists in London and Belfast will learn about practices of self-certification and the GC network. Both are almost unknown throughout Great Britain's food activist networks, such as Slow Food UK. Participants will learn about good practices, be inspired and motivated in order to think of possible innovative forms of mobilisation. In addition, consumers who participate in the proposed events will engage with the dynamics of self-certification of local products, direct consumer-producer relations and assemblies for food sovereignty.
4. In collaboration with Christopher Elliot (Inst for Global Food Security), the finding of the project will fed into the FSA/ESRC funded project 'Analyses of Food Supply Chains for Risks and Resilience to Food Crime' (of which I am part) in order to access UK stakeholders at the FSA. In particular, we will promote insights that help to implement innovative 'good practices' able to enhance consumer trust in new ways and improve consumer-producer relations around the model of grassroot certifications.

Throughout the project, we will work hard to demonstrate the value that critical theorist Rosa (2012) has described as 'resonating' relationships based on trust and face-to-face contacts. In sum, the project offers much needed insights about the potential and limits of 'participatory self-certifications'. These insights will benefit policy-makers who currently work on a model legislative initiative that draws on these procedures, will raise the profile of network 'Genuinely Clandestine' and sensitise consumers, activists and policy makers alike regarding to the timely question of how we can trust in the food we eat.