Globalization and Food Objects

Abstract

This paper examines the notion of global consciousness that is associated with the concept of globalisation. In analyses of globalisation we are confronted by a paradoxical problem: should we privilege a spatial mode of analysis, or, in contrast, the 'shift' from industrial society to a communicational/informational world? While many commentators agree that an important challenge is to develop interpretations relevant to processes of change that are taking place in the world, the issue is how to combine the study of individual's social practices and experiences but at the same time adequately incorporate an understanding of how these processes are shared with other individuals. It is argued that individuals mediate and organise the often conflicting information they receive, this information is then re-worked through their social practices. From this perspective the globalisation concept does not provide us with a systematic and holistic vision, but instead the global image generates a diversity of personal visions of the world. This is problematic and raises at least two important questions: can globalisation as a concept endure in rural sociology? Can it do more than simply communicate the feeling that something is rather different in the world?

The paper attempts to make a contribution towards the way in which global processes are re-conceptualised in sociology by taking the task of analysing people's contemporary practices in order to elaborate an interpretation of how 'modernity' is put to work. In doing so, the paper studies how actors translate into practice new globally orientated economic ventures, using the illustration of how the consumption of food objects takes place, it stresses how processes of 'objectivisation' arise among consumers. In this, the issue of global transformation of agriculture is a consequence of this phenomena. The d1scussion demonstrates that the main element constructing the social, technical and economic 'reality' of fresh vegetable and fruit consumption should be sought in the ways that consumers, retailers and producers have actively engaged in actuallsing the global flows of these commodities whllst creating a multiplicity of interconnections that shape patterns of consumption, the environment and the organisation of social life in different zones of the globe.