On October 11 and 12, 2024, the working group Agricultural and Regional Sociology of the Institute of Sociology hosted the international workshop “Values: From theory to empirical examples in agri-food studies”. The workshop was part of the FWF-funded project “Alternative modes of production and consumption in the corporate food regime” and was organized by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rike Stotten together with Jacqueline Feurstein and Paul Froning.
The workshop was characterized by its international participation: Researchers from Switzerland, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Austria took part. The workshop focused on interdisciplinary perspectives of so-called “Agri-Food Studies”, which deals with the diverse social, ecological, economic and political aspects of agricultural and food systems. It aims to understand the complex relationships between the production, distribution and consumption of food, often focusing on power structures, social inequalities and alternative food systems. It aims to understand the complex relationships between the production, distribution and consumption of food, often focusing on power structures, social inequalities and alternative food systems. The concept of “values” plays a central role here, but is often only vaguely defined. The aim of the workshop was therefore to clarify and sharpen the widely used concept of values.
In a total of seven sessions, different aspects of this concept of values were examined and discussed. Initially, the focus was on theoretical discussion, but as the workshop progressed, practical examples came to the fore. These made it possible to discuss the transfer of theoretical concepts to empirical examples of application.
The thematic and geographical diversity of the contributions was impressive. They ranged from value conflicts in French tomato cultivation to cultural “foodscapes” of mangroves in the Solomon Islands, certification systems in Switzerland and Norway and alternative urban agri-food initiatives in Germany and the Czech Republic.
The workshop thus made a decisive contribution to the discussion and further development of the concept of values in agri-food studies and promoted the exchange between theoretical research and empirical approaches.
