Risk, anti-reflexivity, and ethical neutralization in industrial food processing

Abstract

While innovations have fostered the mass production of food at low costs, there are externalities or side effects associated with high-volume food processing. We focus on foodborne illness linked to two commodities: ground beef and bagged salad greens. In our analysis, we draw from the concepts of risk, reflexive modernization, and techniques of ethical neutralization. For each commodity, we find that systems organized for industrial goals overlook how production models foster cross-contamination and widespread outbreaks. Responses to outbreaks tend to rely on technological fixes, which do not constitute the reflexive change needed to holistically and effectively address foodborne illness in the long term. We contend that powerful anti-reflexivity movements resist calls for reform and successfully maintain industrial goals and organization. Actions that thwart changes in agrifood systems to better protect consumers are unethical, yet they continue to be successful. We argue that specific techniques of ethical neutralization play an important part in their success. Research on anti-reflexivity and techniques of neutralization will serve to further expose the ethical issues associated with the industrial agrifood system and foster new guiding principles and organizational designs for food production.

Strategies for Climate Change and Impression Management: A Case Study Among Canada’s Large Industrial Emitters

“…This literature has in fact mainly focused on the analysis of rationalizations used by individuals to justify deviant behaviors or ethically questionable situations (Strutton et al 1994;Sykes and Matza 1957;Vitell et al 2011). The few studies that analyze the neutralization techniques used by companies primarily focus on defensive reactions to pressures from certain stakeholders (McCormick and Zampa 1990), risks associated with the use of the company products (Fooks et al 2012;Stuart and Worosz 2011), and justifications for unethical behavior by managers (Vitell and Grove 1987;Vitell et al 2011). To our knowledge, no studies so far have been devoted to neutralization techniques justifying impacts in the area of climate change.…”

L'agroécologie, un nouveau rapport aux savoirs et à l'innovation

“…Or, comme le soulignent Stuart et Worosz (2012), les acteurs dominants ont tendance à imposer aux autres leur vision du système alimentaire, souvent inféodée à leurs intérêts. Cet état de fait est entretenu par l'absence de méthode reconnue permettant la réalisation de diagnostics des systèmes alimentaires.…”

Adapting to food safety crises: Interpreting success and failure in the Canadian response to BSE

“…Now 10 years old, the BSE case allows for analysis of subsequent institutional change and retrospection among actors involved. Thus, our inquiry extends beyond the initial crisis response -critical accounts of discrete actions and policy responses have been well-accounted for elsewhere (Leiss et al, 2010) -to address reflexive and system wide changes in the practices, culture and normative valuations shaping institutional responses to food safety (see also MacRae and Toronto Food Council, 1999;Stuart and Worosz, 2012;Worosz et al, 2008). Symmetrically, our research investigates the ways in which risk responses to food safety concerns may actively maintain and legitimate (Freudenberg, 2000) status quo approaches to food-safety and risk management.…”

“…MacRae, working with the MacRae and Toronto Food Council, 1999, notes that Canadian food safety policies play the additional function of supporting narrow economic and productivist logics, and foremost support the production of commodities and not the resiliency of food systems more widely (also, Stuart and Worosz, 2012). Policies close down, or even obstruct, the ability to imagine, discuss or achieve alternates (Worosz et al, 2008).…”