schaffer_questioning_a_text


 * MEMO :: QUESTIONING A TEXT**

Note: I am feeling way sick! So only posting like half of the memo for now. I apologize.

Pollan, Michael. 2006. //The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals//. New York: Penguin.


 * What is the text about – empirically?**

//What phenomenon is drawn out in the text? A social process; a cultural and political economic shift; a cultural “infrastructure;” an emergent assemblage of science-culture-technology-economics?// Pollan writes about three technoscience-culture-economics assemblages (and one rugged individualistic ideal) that provide food to people in the US: the industrial food system, the industrial organic system, the pastoral organic system, and foraging/hunting. He does not call them that, he writes about them as food chains, journeys, meals.

//Where is this phenomenon located – in a neighborhood, in a country, in “Western Culture,” in a globalizing economy?// Pollan focuses his inquiry on food systems in the US, though he gives attention to the distances some foods travel to get to supermarkets from farms in Argentina. There is some focus on the different influences of food systems on specific regions: the economy of Iowa gets tied to genetically-modified corn, for example.

//What historical trajectory is the phenomenon situated within? What, in the chronology provided or implied, is emphasized -- the role of political or economic forces, the role of certain individuals or social groups? What does the chronology leave out or discount?// These food systems are situated in different historical trajectories; the industrial food system is based largely on economic forces, the organic food systems draw from environmental movements, and hunting/foraging gets associated with traditions as well as environmentalism. Most of the histories do not emphasize individuals, though there is some focus on the economic innovators who created the industrial food system.

//What scale(s) are focused on -- nano (i.e. the level of language), micro, meso, macro?// The focus switches between micro and macro; Pollan uses personal narratives to think about and introduce discussion of larger historical forces. There is some focus on a sort of nano level that deals with the movement of atoms and molecules and kernels of corn. This is aimed at developing the macro scale and elucidating national/global stories, but the nano scale here lends a kind of scientificity to the account, and a universality; those atoms could be //anybody’s// atoms.

//What empirical material is developed at each scale?// At the micro level, he shares accounts of his own efforts to track food through the abovementioned systems, and his interactions with informants and family. At the macro level, he draws on historical work, economic, archaeological and medial data to develop descriptions of the networks he is interacting with and their impacts on him and other Americans.

//Who are the players in the text and what are their relations? Does the text trace how these relations have changed across time – because of new technologies, for example?// Eaters and growers are the two main groups of players in the text, Pollan grounds the growth of industrialized agriculture (which separates eaters and growers through opaque mechanism) in technological and economic innovations on the part of agricultural scientists and food salespeople. The rise of local, organic, and self-made food, on the other hand, has brought growers and eaters closer together (or at least, makes them //feel// closer together).

//What is the temporal frame in which players play? In the wake of a particular policy, disaster or other significant “event?” In the general climate of the Reagan era, or of “after-the-Wall” globalization?// The players seem to be playing in something akin to the present moment and the present food movement, but events of the green revolution or environmental movement are enumerated and their impacts discussed.

//What cultures and social structures are in play in the text?// Cultures at play include that of industrial farmers, consumers of organic goods, a generalized American food culture, cultures around local food. I am not certain I have a useful understanding of what defines or bounds a culture! The focal structures are the aforementioned food systems.

//What kinds of practices are described in the text? Are players shown to be embedded in structural contradictions or double-binds?// A variety of farming, foraging, hunting, buying and cooking practices play center stage. Within many of these, double binds exist: farmers in Iowa try to navigate the double binds between producing cheap but subsidized corn and producing other foods; while the titular omnivores are stuck in the double binds of consumer choice.

//How are science and technology implicated in the phenomenon described?// Advances in genetics, chemistry, farming techniques and the psychology of consumption are all implicated in the rise of the industrial farm. Chemistry, medicine, genetics, and farming technology seem to also be useful in understanding the impacts of the industrial food system.

//What structural conditions– technological, legal and legislative, political, cultural – are highlighted, and how are they shown to have shaped the phenomenon described in this text? How – at different scales, in different ways – is power shown to operate? Is there evidence of power operating through language, “discipline,” social hierarchies, bureaucratic function, economics, etc?// The invention of hybrid corn, whose offspring don’t germinate true, allows greater control by seed companies; corn subsidies allow a crop that would not otherwise be economically feasible to be grown by a large number of people. Power seems to operate also through markets and government subsidies, as well as the competitive edge granted by proprietary technologies.

//Does the text provide comparative or systems level perspectives? In other words, is the particular phenomenon described in this text situated in relation to similar phenomenon in other settings? Is this particular phenomena situated within global structures and processes?// The American food system is briefly compared to some European and Indian food systems, but mostly to say that these other systems place a higher value on tradition. This seems like a gross oversimplification!


 * What is the text about – conceptually?**

//Is the goal to verify, challenge or extend prior theoretical claims?// Extend, perhaps? Pollan works to paint a picture that brings together several different areas of theoretical work. In a persuasive way.

//What is the main conceptual argument or theoretical claim of the text? Is it performed, rendered explicit or both?// The American food system has grown in a way that is not advantageous for most American consumers, farmers, ecosystems or animals, and it has done so through a variety of mechanisms. Furthermore, other ways of eating //are// available (to the wealthy/conveniently located/those gifted with leisure time). This argument is both made explicitly and performed through Pollan’s personal narratives.

//What ancillary concepts are developed to articulate the conceptual argument?// The //industrial organic// food supply is developed here; he makes use of the sort-of-ANT-ish-concept of botanical agency that was developed in //Botany of Desire//;

//How is empirical material used to support or build the conceptual argument?// Personal accounts offer Pollan’s witnessing of food systems in operation, interviews largely offer situated critiques of food systems, historical accounts describe how the systems came into play, and scientific explanations are used to explain the interactions of food systems, environments, and consumers.

//How robust is the main conceptual argument of the text? On what grounds could it be challenged?// I buy it, but I bought it before I read the book. I have heard undergraduates respond to readings from O.D. saying that the industrial food system has a certain ingenuity to it, that it is amazing how well it’s done at producing as much food as it has.

//How could the empirical material provided support conceptual arguments other than those built in the text?// There’s an about the ability of these food systems work together to create nutritional disparities along socioeconomic lines, which //I’d// really be interested in seeing drawn out. But somehow Pollan misses the opportunity.


 * Modes of inquiry?**

//What theoretical edifice provides the (perhaps haunting – i.e. non-explicit) backdrop to the text?// I am honestly at a loss here. Pollan works within

//What assumptions appear to have shaped the inquiry? Does the author assume that individuals are rational actors, for example, or assume that the unconscious is a force to be dealt with? Does the author assume that the “goal” of society is (functional) stability?// Pollan assumes that eating

//Does the author assume that what is most interesting occurs with regularity, or is she interested in the incidental and deviant?// Regularity—Pollan is concerned with describing a structure that touches almost every part of our lives.

//What kinds of data (ethnographic, experimental, statistical, etc.) are used in the text, and how were they obtained?// Much of the data comes from primary sources, other data comes from journalistic interviews and the journalistic equivalent of participant observation. There is also a trope of food experiments that Pollan plays with; each articulation of a food system ends with him testing out its product by cooking a meal and feeding it to his family.

//If interviews were conducted, what kinds of questions were asked? What does the author seem to have learned from the interviews?// Pollan’s questions are largely invisible in the text; he explicitly asks a doctor about the effects of antibiotics, and asks a mushroom hunter how he knows there are mushrooms in a field, but for the most part we see the explanations of informants as spontaneous, unelicited. Many of these statements are made over the course of long periods of interaction with Pollan: working with one informant, hunting with another. From these, he receives enumerations of the difficulties of farming, critiques of industrial and organic agriculture, and down-home wisdom about foraging.

//How was the data analyzed? If this is not explicit, what can be inferred?// Data seems to have been gathered to support Pollan’s pre-existing understanding of the food system; analysis was minimal. I might presume that he largely pulls quotes that sound good and support his narrative.

//How are people, objects or ideas aggregated into groups or categories?// “Farmers” and “eaters” are the two big groups of people; farms are separated into industrial, organic, “beyond organic,” food is separated both by farming practices and rhetorical devices.

//What additional data would strengthen the text?// I seriously think it could benefit from some thoughtful comparisons of whole foods with less-bourgeois grocery stores, examination of community gardens, any sort of exploration of non-industrial food systems that are accessible to people without access to organic or beyond-organic or self-hunted food.


 * Structure and performance?**

It is split into three sections titled “Corn,” “Grass,” and “The Forest,” named after the energy source at the bottom of the food chains in these three systems. Within each of these is a personal narrative of investigation and discovery culminating with a meal with his family. Pollan’s experience is highly visible in these narratives, and he slides between personal narrative and historical/economical/ecological/ sociological/etc. examination of the systems at hand.

//What is in the introduction? Does the introduction turn around unanswered questions -- in other words, are we told how this text embodies a research project?// It sets up the premise that Americans aren’t sure how to eat, that we lack a unified food culture and suffer from an embarrassment of dietary choices. Further, he situates the reader in a variety of food chains, and argues that through eating, humans can make profound change in the world.

//Where is theory in the text? Is the theoretical backdrop to the text explained, or assumed to be understood?// Theoretical backdrop is not made visible…

//What is the structure of the discourse in the text? What binaries recur in the text, or are conspicuously avoided?//

//How is the historical trajectory delineated? Is there explicit chronological development?// The overarching time frame of food system adventure gets matched up with the historical timeframes…

//How is the temporal context provided or evoked in the text?// Pollan’s investigative project …

//How does the text specify the cultures and social structures in play in the text?//

//How are informant perspectives dealt with and integrated?//

//How does the text draw out the implications of science and technology? At what level of detail are scientific and technological practices described?//

//How does the text provide in-depth detail – hopefully without losing readers?//

//What is the layout of the text? How does it move, from first page to last? Does it ask for other ways of reading? Does the layout perform an argument?//

//What kinds of visuals are used, and to what effect?//

//What kind of material and analysis are in the footnotes?//

//How is the criticism of the text performed? If through overt argumentation, who is the “opposition”?//

//How does the text situate itself? In other words, how is reflexivity addressed, or not?//


 * Circulation?**

//Who is the text written for? How are arguments and evidence in the text shaped to address particular audiences?// The text is written for a popular audience, presumably one that has considerable buying power and can shop. Evidence seems to take for granted a pre-formed aversion to factory farming, pesticides, etc.

//What all audiences can you imagine for the text, given its empirical and conceptual scope?//

//What new knowledge does this text put into circulation? What does this text have to say that otherwise is not obvious?//

//How generalizable is the main argument? How does this text lay the groundwork for further research?//

//What kind of “action” is suggested by the main argument of the text?//