Field Dynamics and the Emergence of Conflict in the Organic Sector

• In Event: 571 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. The Construction and History of Markets

Abstract

This paper examines organized contention and ideological conflict in the contemporary organic foods and farming sector. It argues that the political economic approach that has guided most of the research on this subject pays insufficient attention to important micro-level processes of interpretation and interaction. It offers an alternative perspective, which draws from Fligstein and McAdam’s recent work on strategic action fields. The field approach directs attention to sector members’ responses to unanticipated events, the creation of shared meanings and collective action frames, and changes in the sector’s governance structure that closed off spaces for ideological diversity and raised the stakes in debates. The argument is illustrated by a review of the organic sector’s history, which focuses on the implementation of federal rules that govern organic foods production and marketing and on the polarization and contention that emerged in the sector over the course of this process.

Author

• Michael Haedicke, Drake University