ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING AND FOOD SAFETY REGULATION IN MICHIGAN: AN ACTORNETWORK STUDY OF INTERACTIONS, INTERESTS, AND FLUID BOUNDARIES
By
Jenifer Ann Buckley

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies – Doctor of Philosophy
2013

ABSTRACT
ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING AND FOOD SAFETY REGULATION IN MICHIGAN: AN ACTORNETWORK STUDY OF INTERACTIONS, INTERESTS, AND FLUID BOUNDARIES
By
Jenifer Ann Buckley
Conventional wisdom has it that food safety regulations impede the practice of
artisanship and other smaller-scale food processing. Artisan food processors are seen to carry on
craft production methods steeped in tradition and adapted to the idiosyncrasies of individual
situations, while food safety inspectors are seen to enforce broad standards formulated in
scientific and political processes that are stacked against smaller producers. Current debates on
regulatory responses to this trend, however, are stymied by a scarcity of research on the practice
of artisanship in contemporary regulated contexts and on the practical enforcement of food safety
regulations during inspections.
This dissertation presents an exploratory ethnographic study that examined the food
safety regulation of artisan processing in Michigan. (Artisan processing is defined here as
processing conducted at a small or medium scale in which producers emphasize manual
production techniques and are involved at each step of the process. It involves batch rather than
continuous production and allows for variability in products and processes.) Careful attention to
artisan-inspector interactions illuminated aspects of artisanship, regulation, and the relationship
between them that are not captured in broad narratives of conflict or in a focus on written rules.
Dichotomies blurred; spaces of overlap and mutuality opened up between interests, actors, and
social phenomena that are otherwise considered inimical to each other. Conventional distinctions

also blurred during fieldwork, as the flow of information and control of the study moved both
ways between researcher and research participants.
Chapter 1 presents the methodology that was developed for the investigation and that
built on science and technology studies (STS), primarily actor-network theory. Chapters 2 and 3
present two analytic perspectives on the findings, drawn from economic theories of regulation
and STS, respectively. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for policy, practice,
and further research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My advisor and the head of my dissertation committee, Jim Bingen, is a gifted mentor
who has provided a solid intellectual rudder over the past five years and who continues to
sharpen my thinking, writing, and scholarship. My dissertation committee—Paul Thompson,
2

1

3

Larry Busch, and Chris Peterson —have supported and challenged me throughout this program
by creating opportunities for research and independent study, taking time to chat about these
ideas as they have developed, and providing funding. In an advisor and committee members, I
sought people whose scholarship I admired and wanted to build on, and who would bring broad,
enthusiastic intellects to this process. I thank all of them for making this a fulfilling and
enjoyable experience.
This research was made possible by artisan processors and by inspectors and staff of the
Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Food and Dairy
Division. They took time to talk with me, often for hours, about their experiences with the food
safety regulation of artisan food processing. Many of them also allowed me to watch them work
as they baked, made cheese, and conducted food safety inspections. Their openness, help, and
hospitality made this work engaging and exciting.

1

MSU Departments of Community Sustainability; Philosophy; and Agricultural, Food, and
Resource Economics
2
MSU Department of Sociology
3

MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
iv

The generous participation of my Project Advisory Committee also made this research
4

possible. I thank members Kevin Besey, Director, MDARD Food and Dairy Division; Siobhan
Kent, Department Analyst, MDARD Food Safety Planning and Response; Natasha Lantz,
Community Liaison, Marquette Food Co-op, Marquette, Mich.; Sue Spagnuolo, Cheesemaker,
Greenbush Farms, St. Johns, Mich.; and Ron Steiner, Director, The Starting Block Incubator
Kitchen, Hart, Mich. Their feedback and the connections that they helped make were invaluable.
My findings do not necessarily reflect their views, but I hope that this dissertation does justice to
their contributions. I also thank the Michigan Cheese Makers Cooperative, the MSU Product
Center, and the many organizations and individuals who assisted with project promotion and
outreach.
5

Staff of the MSU Department of Community Sustainability helped with the
practicalities of graduate work in myriad ways. Much appreciation goes to Diane Davis, Sue
Chatterley, Kris Ten-Eyck, Kim Richards, Frances Kaneene, Cheryl Lowe, and Mary Pierce. I
also thank Julie Eckinger and Greta McKinney, assistants to Paul Thompson and Chris Peterson,
respectively.
The MSU Graduate School supported five years of my program with a generous
University Distinguished Fellowship. Research funding was provided by a Graduate Student
Grant from the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, a Doctoral

4

Mr. Besey graciously corrected errors concerning MDARD regulations and inspections in an
earlier draft of this dissertation. Remaining errors are my own.
5
Formerly the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies.
v

Dissertation Research Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, and the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation.

6

My thinking was brightened and enlivened in indirect ways throughout this program by
the “Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives” lecture series that John Beck coordinates at Michigan
State; the East Lansing Film Festival; and, during long drives through Michigan while doing
fieldwork, WCMU Public Radio.
My parents, Patrick and Nancy Buckley, have always encouraged curiosity and
adventure. I thank them for this and for a lifetime of enthusiastic dinner table conversations
about grammar, words, and ideas. Graduate students and other colleagues at Michigan State have
provided critique, cribbage games, and camaraderie. Friends and colleagues in northeastern
Minnesota have been a lifeline.

6

This project and all associated reports and support materials have been supported by:

the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, which is
funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture – National Institute of Food and
Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), under Project Number GNC10-134;
• The National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-1230878; and
• Funds from a grant to Michigan State University from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
to establish a pasture-based dairy program at the Kellogg Biological Station.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed within do not necessarily
reflect the views of the SARE program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or the National
Science Foundation. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
•

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... xi
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................................................... xii
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 1
Implications for Policy and Practice ..................................................................................... 5
Further Research................................................................................................................. 6
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 1
ACTOR-NETWORK METHODOLOGY AND INTERACTIONS AMONG SOCIAL PHENOMENA: FOOD
SAFETY REGULATION, ARTISAN PROCESSING, AND ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH ........................ 10
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 10
I.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 11
II.
THE ENACTMENT OF A SOCIAL PHENOMENON .......................................................... 14
A.
The Agency of Non-Humans ................................................................................ 14
B.
The Formative Role of Human Logics .................................................................. 16
C.
Multiple Versions .................................................................................................. 18
III.
METHODS......................................................................................................................... 19
Selection Bias....................................................................................................... 19
IV.
EXOGENOUS INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PHENOMENA ............................................. 20
A.
The Researcher as an Exogenous Actor .............................................................. 21
B.
The Interaction of This Researcher with Artisanship and Regulation ................... 23
The Research Study as an Actor ............................................................. 24
The Researcher as an Actor .................................................................... 26
V.
OBSERVATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ............................ 28
A.
Observations on the Application of the Methodology............................................ 28
Non-Humans ........................................................................................... 29
Logics ...................................................................................................... 30
Difficulties ................................................................................................ 30
Interpersonal Interaction .......................................................................... 31
B.
Implications for Further Research......................................................................... 32
Participant Observation ........................................................................... 32
Social Justice .......................................................................................... 33
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................ 34
APPENDIX A: DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF METHODS ............................................... 35
APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT—ARTISANS ................................................. 42
APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT—FOOD SAFETY INSPECTORS .................. 43
APPENDIX D: FIELD OBSERVATION INSTRUMENT—ARTISAN PROCESSING .......... 44
APPENDIX E: FIELD OBSERVATION INSTRUMENT—FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION .. 45
APPENDIX F: AGENDA FOR FOCUS GROUP #1 ........................................................... 47
APPENDIX G: AGENDA FOR FOCUS GROUP #2........................................................... 48

vii

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 49
CHAPTER 2
THE COMPLEMENTARY INTERESTS OF ECONOMIC ACTORS: FOOD SAFETY REGULATIONS
AND ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING IN MICHIGAN ................................................................................. 55
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 55
I.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 55
II.
ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING ....................................................................................... 58
A.
Artisanship............................................................................................................ 58
B.
Artisanship and Food Safety Regulation .............................................................. 59
III.
REGULATIONS AND INTERESTS ................................................................................... 61
A.
Public Interest ....................................................................................................... 61
Historical and Conceptual Background.................................................... 61
Problematizing the Notion of the Public Interest ...................................... 64
B.
Private Interests.................................................................................................... 65
C.
Institutional Economics and the Interdependence of Interests.............................. 67
D.
Complementary Interests ..................................................................................... 69
IV.
METHODS......................................................................................................................... 70
A.
The Case .............................................................................................................. 72
B.
Participant Selection ............................................................................................. 73
C.
Data Collection and Analysis ................................................................................ 74
V.
FINDINGS: ARTISAN AND INSPECTOR VIEWS ON INTERESTS SERVED BY
REGULATIONS ................................................................................................................. 76
A.
Benefits ................................................................................................................ 76
1.
To Artisans .............................................................................................. 76
Technical Assistance .................................................................. 77
Support in Enforcing Their Own Standards ................................ 78
Sharing of Ideas ......................................................................... 78
2.
To Inspectors........................................................................................... 78
Pride in Seeing Businesses Succeed ......................................... 78
Relationships with Small and Medium Producers ....................... 79
Learning about a Variety of Production Styles............................ 79
3.
To Food Consumers ................................................................................ 80
B.
Negative Aspects.................................................................................................. 81
1.
For Artisans ............................................................................................. 81
Impeding Artisan Techniques ..................................................... 81
Imposing Unreasonable Costs ................................................... 82
Requiring Unnecessary Measures.............................................. 82
2.
For Inspectors ......................................................................................... 82
Investment of Time ..................................................................... 83
Emotional Investment in Businesses That Ultimately Close ....... 83
C.
The Interpersonal Dynamics of Regulatory Practice............................................. 83
1.
Benefits ................................................................................................... 84
2.
Negative Aspects..................................................................................... 85
VI.
CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS...................................... 86
A.
Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 86
B.
Implications and Recommendations for Research and Policy .............................. 87
viii

Research Implications ............................................................................. 87
Bias ............................................................................................ 87
Further Research ....................................................................... 88
2.
Policy Recommendations ........................................................................ 89
Recommended Inspector Approaches ....................................... 90
Inspector Training ....................................................................... 91
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 92
1.

CHAPTER 3
THE CRAFT OF FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION AND THE TECHNOLOGY OF ARTISANSHIP:
EXPLORING FLUID BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SOCIAL PHENOMENA ................................................. 102
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. 102
I.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 103
II.
CRAFT PRODUCTION, INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, AND FOOD SAFETY
REGULATION ................................................................................................................. 104
A.
Craft Production.................................................................................................. 105
Embodied Skill and Small Scale ............................................................ 107
Variability and Adaptability .................................................................... 107
Autonomy .............................................................................................. 108
B.
Industrial Production ........................................................................................... 109
Manufacturing Technologies ................................................................. 109
A Logic of Efficiency .............................................................................. 110
Food Safety Regulation in the US ...................................................................... 111
C.
III.
THE CRAFT OF INSPECTION AND THE INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY OF
ARTISANSHIP................................................................................................................. 113
A.
The Craft of Inspection ....................................................................................... 114
Developing Embodied Skill .................................................................... 115
Variable and Adaptive Work .................................................................. 116
Autonomy .............................................................................................. 119
Technological Simplicity ........................................................................ 119
B.
The Industrial Technology of Artisanship ............................................................ 119
Industrial Technologies.......................................................................... 120
Standardization ..................................................................................... 122
Industrial Technology and Craft Logic ................................................... 122
IV.
FLUID BOUNDARIES BETWEEN ARTISANSHIP AND FOOD SAFETY
REGULATION ................................................................................................................. 123
A.
Endogenous and Exogenous Interactions .......................................................... 125
Endogenous Interactions ....................................................................... 125
Exogenous Interactions ......................................................................... 126
B.
Boundaries ......................................................................................................... 128
C.
Coherence and Divergence ................................................................................ 130
Coherence ............................................................................................. 130
Divergence ............................................................................................ 132
V.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ............................ 134
A.
Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 134
B.
Implications for Further Research....................................................................... 135
The Question of Power .......................................................................... 135
ix

Alternative and Conventional Food Networks ........................................ 136
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 137
IN CONCLUSION
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................. 147
I.
SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... 147
Methodology ....................................................................................................... 148
Interests.............................................................................................................. 149
Fluid and Negotiated Boundaries between Phenomena..................................... 151
II.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE ................................................. 152
Recommended Inspector Approaches ............................................................... 152
Inspector Training ............................................................................................... 153
Effective Artisan Practices .................................................................................. 153
III.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................... 154
A.
Methodological Considerations........................................................................... 154
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act ..................................................... 154
Participant Observation ......................................................................... 154
Selection Bias........................................................................................ 155
Further Research................................................................................................ 155
B.
Questions of Power and Social Justice ................................................. 155
Alternative and Conventional Food Networks ........................................ 156
Regulatory Enforcement ........................................................................ 157
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................... 158
APPENDIX: OUTREACH PRESENTATIONS AND ARTICLES ...................................... 159
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 161

x

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Participation in research phases: Numbers and types of participants ............................................ 35
Table 2. Participants in interviews and field observations: Years of experience as licensed processors or
practicing inspectors ........................................................................................................................... 35
Table 3. Participation in interviews and field observations ........................................................................... 75

xi

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS

ANT ............. Actor-network theory (“A-N-T”)
EPA .............. US Environmental Protection Agency
FDA.............. US Food and Drug Administration
FSMA........... Food Safety Modernization Act (FIZZ-ma)
HACCP ........ Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (“HASS-ip”)
HARPC ........ Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls
MDARD....... Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (“EM-dard”)
MSU ............. Michigan State University
NSF .............. National Science Foundation
SARE ........... USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (“SAIR”)
STS............... Science and technology studies
USDA........... US Department of Agriculture

xii

INTRODUCTION
The idea for this dissertation originated during the bright, frigid winters that I loved
throughout the many years I lived in Duluth, Minnesota. Working with the Lake Superior
Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, I spent the growing season each
year helping create and support direct market opportunities—farmers’ markets, community
supported agriculture, and other ways of promoting fresh local produce. Yet the growing season
was just a few months long. In the off season, at some point between canning tomatoes and
snowshoeing to the compost bin in my backyard, I began to wonder: Why aren’t there more
commercial processing operations? Why hasn’t regional food processing seized people’s
imagination the way fresh produce has? Eventually, after spending a career swearing I would
never do a PhD, these questions took shape as a dissertation topic, and I came to Michigan State.
Conventional wisdom has it that food safety regulations impede artisanship and other
smaller-scale food processing initiatives. Artisan food processors and food safety inspectors
seem to move in separate worlds. The former are seen to carry on craft production methods
steeped in tradition and adapted to the idiosyncrasies of individual situations, while the latter are
seen to enforce broad standards formulated in scientific and political processes that are stacked
against smaller producers. Some advocates of artisanship and other smaller-scale agrifood
production see an inherent conflict between the two, claiming that regulation legitimates and
reinforces the industrial agrifood models to which artisanship represents an alternative. Current
debates on the food safety regulation of small-scale and localized production demonstrate the
difficulty of determining a regulatory response to alternative agrifood production trends. What,
then, is the relationship between artisanship and regulation? Is it troubled, and if so in what
ways? What to do?

1

Drama permeates the issue. Food safety regulation and artisan food processing both offer
stories of conflict, struggle, and persistence against adversity. The history of food safety
regulation features incompetent and unscrupulous food manufacturers (Wilson 2008), and it is
punctuated by exploding cans of peas (Russell 1895), spoiled meat (House Committee on
Agriculture 1906), and toxic additives (New York Times staff 1904). For its part, the story of
artisanship features producers who bravely flout an economic and regulatory system that favors
mass industrial agrifood production. It is a narrative of honest, independent craftspeople daring
to make an honest living (da Cruz and Menasche [in press]; Paxson 2012; Terrio 2000; Tregear
2005). The intersection between the two stories is also dramatic. One common perspective on the
food safety regulation of artisanship pits a too-powerful government against small producers. A
very different perspective pits maverick and possibly dangerous producers against an
unsuspecting public, necessitating government intervention.
This dissertation presents an exploratory ethnographic study that examined this issue in
Michigan. Rather than accept collision and controversy as inevitable fact, the study strove to
suspend assumptions about the interaction between artisanship and regulation and, instead,
examined the two phenomena in practice. The methodology developed to do so draws
conceptually from science and technology studies (STS), primarily actor-network theory
7

(ANT). Artisanship and food safety regulation are approached as two social phenomena.
Methodological attention to non-human actors, logics, and multiple versions of phenomena
underpin the approach. That is, social phenomena are enacted through interactions among human
as well as non-human actors (Callon 1986; Latour and Woolgar 1979; Law 1992). Artisanship
7

STS is, broadly speaking, an interdisciplinary field that studies science and technology as
forms of culture. Its roots are in the social sciences (Law 2008). ANT is introduced in Chapter 1
(page 12).
2

involves artisans as well as non-humans such as production equipment and ingredients.
Regulation involves inspectors as well as thermometers and clipboards. What non-humans do
and hence “are” is shaped by the logics through which humans view them (Boltanski and
Thévenot 2006[1991]; Mol 2008; Singleton 2010). Like other phenomena, artisanship and
regulation come into being as they are enacted, in multiple versions, rather than existing a priori
as fixed, abstract ideas.
Field work involved semi-structured interviews and observations. Interviews were
conducted with artisan bread, cheese, and jam makers and state food safety inspectors. For
purposes of this study, artisan processing is defined as processing conducted at a small or
medium scale in which producers emphasize manual production techniques and are involved at
each step of the process. It involves batch rather than continuous production and allows for
variability in products and processes (American Cheese Society 2011; Blundell 2002; Bread
8

Bakers Guild of America 2013; de Roest and Menghi 2000; Paxson 2011). Field observations
9

were conducted of bread and cheese processing operations and food safety inspections. Data
collection procedures focused on non-humans, logics, and the interactions among actors. Two
focus groups were held following interviews and observations to provide a check of internal
validity on preliminary findings.
Careful attention to the minutiae of interactions illuminated aspects of artisanship,
regulation, and the relationship between them that are not captured in dramatic narratives of
8

Standard definitions have not been developed for artisanship as they have for other production
approaches such as for organic agriculture. For some self-described artisans, the term refers to
much more, and sometimes to less, than these qualities (Tregear 2005).
9
Inspections are periodic visits of a food safety inspector to a processing facility in order to
evaluate the facility’s compliance with regulations.
3

conflict. Artisans and inspectors shared a concern for food safety, and in many cases defined it in
the same way, although they did not always agree on how to achieve it. Dichotomies blurred;
gray areas emerged between craft work and industrial work. Spaces of overlap and mutuality
opened up between interests, actors, and phenomena that are otherwise considered inimical to
each other. During fieldwork, the flow of information and control of the study moved both ways
between researcher and research participants.
The following chapters present the methodological approach and two analytic
perspectives on the findings. The methodology presented in Chapter 1 elaborates the approach
introduced above, conceptualizing artisan and regulatory practice as two social phenomena that
are each enacted in practice through the interactions of a mix of human and non-human actors.
The two phenomena also interact with and shape each other. Artisanship is among the
phenomena that shape regulatory practice, and regulatory practice is among the phenomena that
shape artisanship. The research itself introduces a third phenomenon into this mix. The chapter
examines the interactions of the study and the researcher with the phenomena under
investigation.
Chapters 2 and 3 present the findings of this fieldwork from economic and STS
perspectives, respectively. Chapter 2 positions the debate on appropriate policy responses to the
growing popularity of artisanship within several economic theories of regulation. It argues that
this debate is impeded by conflicting assumptions about the interests that regulations serve and
do not serve. The theories have contributed to a narrative of “winners and losers” by juxtaposing
the interests of different actors to explain the motivations behind regulations and to frame
regulatory impacts.

4

Instead, Chapter 2 offers an alternative way of thinking about the interests that
regulations serve. It argues that interests can be complementary. The chapter addresses the
questions: Whose interests does the regulatory process serve? In what ways? According to
whom? In this research, artisans and inspectors both depicted a dynamic of complementarity and
synergy among their respective interests, rather than one of competing or mutually exclusive
interests.
In Chapter 3, I use the idea of boundaries to explore the relationship between artisanship
and regulation, two intersecting phenomena. The two phenomena appear to be quite separate and
to have little to do with each other, and popular accounts of their relationship depict two
colliding phenomena. However, observation of the interplay between artisanship and regulation
during food safety inspections reveals that commonly assumed distinctions between them blur.
The relationship between these phenomena is neither rigid nor static. The boundary between
them is negotiated and rendered fluid by the multiple identities that human and non-human actors
assume, and by the multiple logics that humans apply. In practice, both artisans and inspectors
approach their work and their interactions with each other in diverse and dynamic ways. Artisan
food processors use industrial technology, and some organize production in a regimented way
suggestive of operations engineering. Inspectors ply a craft; they draw on the tacit skills that they
have developed in learning their profession, and they use very few technologically sophisticated
implements during facility inspections. Food safety inspections provide opportunities for
boundary management during which artisans and inspectors negotiate points of coherence and
divergence between their respective phenomena.
Implications for Policy and Practice. Interactions between artisans and inspectors during food
safety inspections affect the practical impact that regulations have on artisan processing.
5

Inspectors and artisans appear to work well together when they are well prepared for these
interactions. Artisans and other smaller-scale food processors who have been led to expect
problems with food safety inspectors may well bring about (possibly unnecessary) problems.
Inspectors with little understanding of artisan operations or of the multifaceted role that they play
for smaller processors may also make these interactions problematic, if unwittingly.
At this writing, the Preventive Controls Rule of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act
(FSMA) has not been finalized, and its eventual impact on the production and inspection
processes described in this dissertation is unknown. Michigan law adopts federal regulations by
incorporation. Regulations that currently govern many of the artisans participating in this study,
such as 21 CFR §110, allow inspectors discretion in determining how processors can meet
regulations. It is hoped that FSMA preserves this discretionary flexibility. It is also hoped that
any new requirements for written procedures and recordkeeping preserve the potential for
productive interaction between inspectors and artisans during the inspection process.
Further Research. As an exploratory ethnography of the food safety regulation of
artisanship, this dissertation breaks new ground in the scholarship of food policy and of
alternative agrifood trends. Suggestions for further research appear at the end of each chapter and
in the conclusion.

6

BIBLIOGRAPHY

7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Cheese Society. 2011. Cheese glossary. http://www.cheesesociety.org/i-heartcheese/cheese-glossary/. Accessed August 6, 2013.
Blundell, Richard. 2002. Network evolution and the growth of artisanal firms: a tale of two
regional cheese makers. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 14(1): 1-30.
Boltanski, Luc and Laurent Thévenot. 2006[1991]. On Justification: Economies of Worth. Trans.
Catherine Porter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bread Bakers Guild of America. 2013. Who we are. http://www.bbga.org/about/who_we_are.
Accessed August 6, 2013.
Callon, Michel. 1986. Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the
Scallops and the Fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay. In Power, Action and Belief: a New
Sociology of Knowledge?, ed. John Law, 196-223. London: Routledge.
da Cruz, Fabiana Thomé and Renata Menasche. [in press]. Tradition and diversity jeopardised by
food safety regulations? The Serrano Cheese case, Campos de Cima da Serra region,
Brazil. Food Policy.
de Roest, Kees and Alberto Menghi. 2000. Reconsidering ‘traditional’ food: The case of
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Sociologia Ruralis 40(4): 439-451.
House Committee on Agriculture. 1906. Hearings on the so-called "Beveridge Amendment" to
the Agricultural Appropriation Bill (HR 18537) as passed by the Senate May 25, 1906.
House of Representatives, 59th Congress, June 6-June 11.
Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts.
Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Law, John. 1992. Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and
heterogeneity. Systemic Practice and Action Research 5(4): 379-393.
---. 2008. On sociology and STS. The Sociological Review 56(4): 623-649.
Mol, Annemarie. 2008. The Logic of Care: Health and the Problem of Patient Choice. New
York: Routledge.
New York Times staff. 1904. Poison squad escaped federal food experts: Been eating doctored
food five months and don't like it. New York Times. May 22.
Paxson, Heather. 2011. The 'art' and 'science' of handcrafting cheese in the United States.
Endeavour 35(2-3): 116-124.

8

---. 2012. The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America. Berkeley, Calif.: University
of California Press.
Russell, Harry L. 1895. Gaseous fermentation in the canning industry. Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin
Experiment Station. 12th Annual Report, 227-231.
Singleton, Vicky. 2010. Good farming: Control or care? In Care in Practice: On Tinkering in
Clinics, Homes and Farms, ed. Annemarie Mol, Ingunn Moser, and Jeanette Pols, 235256. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript.
Terrio, Susan J. 2000. Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate. Berkeley, Calif.:
University of California Press.
Tregear, Angela. 2005. Lifestyle, growth, or community involvement? The balance of goals of
UK artisan food producers. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 17(1): 1-15.
Wilson, Bee. 2008. Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to
Counterfeit Coffee. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

9

CHAPTER 1
ACTOR-NETWORK METHODOLOGY AND INTERACTIONS AMONG SOCIAL PHENOMENA: FOOD
SAFETY REGULATION, ARTISAN PROCESSING, AND ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
ABSTRACT
A methodology is developed for an exploratory ethnographic study of the food safety
regulation of artisan food processing in Michigan. The methodology builds on science and
technology studies perspectives, primarily actor-network theory. This conceptual foundation
comprises three main elements. First is the role of non-humans as well as that of humans in
enacting social phenomena. That is, artisan and regulatory practice are each enacted in practice
through the interactions of a mix of human and non-human actors. Artisanship is enacted through
the interactions of ingredients, equipment, and facilities, as well as artisans. Regulatory practice
is enacted through the interactions of laboratory coats, thermometers, and clipboards, as well as
inspectors. Second, these interactions are informed by the logics that the human actors apply to
what they do and to how they view these non-humans. Third, multiple versions of each
phenomenon ensue. What may initially appear to be well-defined categories of human activity
are, in fact, continuously enacted, reenacted, and redefined over time through these collective
interactions. There are as many “artisanships” as there are artisans. Regulatory practice comes in
at least as many versions as there are inspectors.
Phenomena also interact with each other. Artisanship is among the phenomena that shape
regulatory practice, and regulatory practice is among the phenomena that shape artisanship. The
research described in this chapter investigates these exogenous interactions between artisanship
and regulation to better understand these phenomena and the relationship between them. The
research study itself introduces a third phenomenon into this mix of exogenous interactions.
Fieldwork involves observations of artisan processing and subsequent food safety inspections of
10

the artisan facilities. The agency of the study itself and of the researcher is considered. The
chapter concludes with observations on the application of the methodology and implications for
further research.

I.

INTRODUCTION
This chapter describes the methodology

10

developed for an exploratory ethnographic

study of food safety regulation, artisan processing,

11

and the relationship between them. It

develops the concepts of endogenous and exogenous interaction to examine the ways in which
phenomena, such as food safety regulation and artisan food processing, are enacted and interact
with each other, and to examine the interaction of a researcher and research study with the
phenomena under investigation.
According to conventional wisdom, food safety regulations impede artisanship and other
smaller-scale food processing initiatives.

12

However, there is little research supporting or

10

The term methodology refers here to the conceptual framework that guides one’s practical
approach to research and one’s selection of methods. The methodology presented in this chapter
conceptualizes artisanship and regulation as enacted in practice through minute interactions
among humans and non-humans, interactions that are shaped by human logic. These
methodological assumptions about the research problem point toward ethnographic methods,
such as semi-structured interviews and field observations, as the methods of choice in this
investigation.
11
For purposes of this study, artisan processing is defined as processing conducted at a small or
medium scale in which producers emphasize manual production techniques and are involved at
each step of the process. It involves batch rather than continuous production and allows for
variability in products and processes (American Cheese Society 2011; Blundell 2002; Bread
Bakers Guild of America 2013; de Roest and Menghi 2000; Paxson 2011).
12
Putative tensions between artisanship and regulation are discussed in more detail in other
chapters. In brief, interest in artisanship as an alternative to more conventionally produced food
in the US has grown in the past 15 years (Davidson 2012; Jenkins 2005; Paxson 2012; Rector
1999). Some supporters of agrifood alternatives contend that regulations are antithetical to
11

refuting this claim. Little research has looked closely at the practice of artisan food processing in
contemporary, industrial contexts,

13

and there has been little to no investigation involving direct

field observation of the regulation of small-scale food production in the US.

14

Research in the

US is based largely on the experiences that small food business owners report (Buckley et al.
2011; Worosz et al. 2008) rather than on direct observation of regulatory processes. Importantly,
regulators’ own experiences of small food businesses and inspections have not been examined.
Conceptually, this chapter considers the problem as one of the relationship between two
social phenomena, artisanship and food safety regulation. The method developed to address this
problem draws upon science and technology studies (STS), primarily actor-network theory
(ANT), as a conceptual source for constructing an exploratory ethnographic method. ANT views
phenomena such as artisanship and regulation as enacted by a mix of human and non-human
actors. Even the most “social” of phenomena are inseparable from non-human objects and cannot
be understood without attending to even the most mundane of these objects. Artisanship involves
artisans, of course, but it also requires non-humans such as production equipment and
ingredients, all of which interact to enact artisanship. Regulation involves legislators and
inspectors, but it also requires non-humans such as thermometers and clipboards, all of which
interact to enact regulation.

artisanship and other smaller-scale production and that they instead favor large-scale industrial
producers (DeLind and Howard 2008; Sage 2007; Stuart and Worosz 2012).
13
For exceptions, see, e.g., Paxson (2008, 2010, 2011, 2012); Terrio (1998, 2000).
14

A Google Scholar search for key terms yielded no US studies. Studies in the UK include
Fairman and Yapp’s research (Fairman and Yapp 2005a, b; Yapp and Fairman 2006) and
Hutter’s investigation (1988, 1989) of the enforcement of public health laws in a broad selection
of industries.
12

Abstract and general notions of either of these phenomena therefore do not begin to help
us understand them, let alone understand how the two relate to each other. The semantic use of
broad terms such as regulation and artisanship may reinforce the notion that the phenomena
exist as ideal “types” to which regulators and artisans must hew. But each phenomenon is a work
in progress rather than a finished product or an archetypal idea. This study thus focused on what
happens in local, specific instances of regulatory and artisan practice.
The study involved ethnographic fieldwork that included direct field observation of
artisan processing and food safety inspection. The methodology takes into consideration
interactions between phenomena—exogenous interactions—as well as endogenous interactions
within phenomena such as those described above. Phenomena interact with and shape each other.
This chapter conceptualizes the research itself as a phenomenon that enters exogenously into this
mix.

15

The researcher’s entry into a research situation introduces a new set of dynamics that

shape the phenomena under investigation, just as the phenomena help constitute the research.
The chapter is in five sections. Following this introduction, the second section elaborates
the conceptual perspective that informs the methodology: the concepts of non-humans and logics
that guided the investigation and the notion that phenomena are enacted in multiple ways. The
third section summarizes the methods, which are described in more detail in the Appendices. The
fourth section extends this perspective to apply to interactions between different phenomena—
exogenous interactions—with particular attention to the researcher as an exogenous actor. It
describes the conduct of the fieldwork using the idea of exogenous interactions. The fifth section
offers observations on the application of the methodology and implications for further research.

15

Chapter 3 examines this idea in more detail.
13

II.

THE ENACTMENT OF A SOCIAL PHENOMENON
Regulation and agrifood production are easy to think of as abstract ideas, as categories of

human activity that simply “exist.” Yet the practice of a phenomenon precedes the idea of it.
Phenomena do not exist outside of their enactment in practice. It is through continual enactment
and reenactment that general ideas of “regulation” and “artisanship” take shape. Over time, these
general ideas overshadow the more specific interactions (of both humans and non-humans) that
are involved in enacting them. We come to think of regulation and artisanship as “things” that
“just are.” We see a forest and not its constituent trees. But to understand what happens when
phenomena such as artisanship and regulation intersect, we need to zoom back in, to re-attend to
the specificities of phenomena as they are practiced.
This section presents the elements of this methodology’s conceptual foundation. It first
considers the agency of non-humans. Second, it considers the role of human logics in shaping
these non-humans. What non-humans objects do and hence “are” is shaped by the logics through
which humans view them. Third, and consequently, multiple versions of phenomena ensue.
There are at least as many “artisanships” as there are artisans. Regulatory practice comes in at
least as many versions as there are inspectors.
A.

The Agency of Non-Humans
Artisanship and regulatory practice are enacted by a dynamic mix of human and non-

human actors (Callon 1986; Jasanoff 2004; Law 1992). It is easy to think of these phenomena as
simply social, since they are created in human society and appear to be shaped by humans rather
than by mere non-humans such as food ingredients and equipment. However, “the social” cannot

14

be separated from non-humans (Latour 2005).

16

Non-human details of social life are constitutive

of phenomena that otherwise appear to be strictly social; material objects shape and delimit
human activities (Latour and Woolgar 1979; Mol 2002; Moser and Law 1999). Artisans alone do
not produce artisanship, but interact with a host of actors such as processing technologies and
ingredients. Likewise, inspectors alone do not enforce regulations, but interact with actors such
as hairnets, clipboards, and flashlights.
Objects have agency. They do things. For this reason, this methodology considers them
as actors. A cheesemaker, for example, installs a mechanical stirrer in his cheese vat. The stirrer
is a machine, and it is not human. But it is not inert. It acts and interacts with other humans and
objects that participate in cheesemaking. It compels the cheesemaker to conduct regular cleaning
and maintenance. It may help the cheesemaker, such as when it facilitates the stirring of the curd.
It may also hinder him, such as when it malfunctions. The stirrer may introduce other actors into
cheesemaking by dripping unwanted mechanical oil into the vat or by harboring microorganisms
in hard-to-clean places. Research on the cheesemaker’s process is incomplete without
considering what these non-humans do. The researcher needs to understand the cheesemaker’s
interaction with the stirrer, the series of other interactions that the stirrer introduces, and the ways
in which the inspector views the stirrer.
Many non-human actors are easily overlooked, although they are indispensable in the
production of a phenomenon. Think of the unassuming and humble mien of refrigerators and
hairnets. This methodology looks to difficulties—interactions that do not go as planned—to draw

16

A similar point is explored in organizational studies on socio-technical systems, e.g., Trist
(1981).
15

attention to details that may otherwise be missed (Latour 2005).

17

To illustrate: An artisan and

an inspector may disagree about whether a wooden-handled ladle is acceptable in cheesemaking.
This disagreement makes visible an ensemble of actors that participate in the enactment of
artisanship and regulation but that may otherwise escape the researcher’s notice: the materials of
which tools and equipment are made; the array of actors behind the tools and equipment, such as
craftsmen and industrial engineers; the microorganisms lurking on surfaces or carried on the air;
and even the surfaces and the air.
B.

The Formative Role of Human Logics
The logics

18

that different individuals bring to situations shape non-humans and, by

extension, these phenomena. A logic, here, refers broadly to the way that someone makes sense
of the world and acts—to the criteria that someone applies to justify what he or she does (Mol et
al. 2010).

19

For example, Mol (2008) distinguishes between the logic of care and the logic of

choice among health care practitioners in the Netherlands. For practitioners who operate
according to a logic of care, practices are enacted in an ongoing, malleable, and interactive
process involving many factors. In contrast, the logic of choice conceptualizes patients as utilitymaximizing individuals engaged in health care transactions. Similarly, Singleton (2010)

17

The term difficulties is used where Latour (2005) would refer to controversies. To some
readers, controversies may imply events of a more contentious nature than is intended here.
Difficulties also refers to situations that Boltanski and Thévenot (2006[1991]) may describe as
critical moments. For further discussion of affinities between ANT and Boltanski and Thévenot’s
work, see Guggenheim and Potthast (2012).
18
Logic is used as a specific noun rather than generic noun. The plural logics draws attention to
the different ways in which people make sense of the world. This attention to multiple logics
discourages the idea that there is a single, authoritative logic that drives human action.
19
Logics may be articulated in ideologies, but they are not necessarily ideological. They may be
articulated explicitly. They may be implicit and evident only by observation.
16

distinguishes between the logics of care and control to characterize differences between farmer
and regulator logic in her investigation of farming practices and cattle regulations in the UK. The
logic of care is “embodied and relational, embedded in a flow of events” (2010, p. 244, ital.
orig.). In contrast, the logic of control follows a linear, disembodied, and calculable timetable.
Human logics define the non-human actors involved in phenomena. What a non-human
actor “is” and “does” depends on the place that it has in someone’s world.

20

Artisans and

regulators may see the same implement as two quite different actors—as “doing” quite different
things. The ladle in a cheesemaking facility cannot be assumed to be just a ladle. To an artisan
cheesemaker, a wooden-handled ladle may carry on a quality craft tradition. According to the
artisan’s logic, the wooden-handled ladle represents a tradition of creative craftsmanship that
uses natural materials. He justifies its use according to criteria that value creativity, tradition, and
the accommodation of nature. To an inspector, a wooden-handled ladle may harbor diseasecausing microbes. The inspector may prefer the use of stainless steel, viewing it as a material that
increases the scale, safety, and efficiency of food production—a technological achievement in
food manufacture. She applies criteria that value technological progress, consistency in materials
and processes, and unprecedented ability to control unwanted microbes. According to these two
logics, the ladle is two different actors.

20

The idea of logics is akin to the modes of justification theorized by Boltanski and Thévenot
(2006[1991]). In their analysis, actions are justified according to different sets of rules that
correspond to different “worlds.” For example, action within the industrial world of
justification—which is arguably reflected in regulations—is justified by efficiency. Action
within the inspired world, suggested by some aspects of artisan production, is justified by
creativity. Compromise is made possible when different worlds share specific principles (see
also Wilkinson 1997). Compare to Kaplan’s (1979) logic-in-use and reconstructed logic.
17

As they did for non-humans above, difficulties help to foreground the logics by which
humans act. By introducing a difficulty, an issue to resolve, the ladle provides the cheesemaker
and inspector with occasion to articulate the logics by which they justify what they do. Attending
to details such as these generates a sharper picture of each phenomenon than do general claims
about regulations and artisans. In turn, this sharper picture facilitates a better understanding of
the relationship between the two phenomena than do claims that regulations do not accommodate
artisans.
C.

Multiple Versions
Multiple versions of phenomena ensue (Law and Lien 2013; Law and Urry 2004; Mol

1999, 2002). Regulation, artisanship, and other phenomena do not exist a priori as abstract, welldefined human activities. They are complex and varied. Phenomena are continuously enacted,
reenacted, and redefined over time through the collective interactions of humans and nonhumans. The human actors involved in phenomena are, themselves, multiple (Schatzki 2002;
Star 1991)—they enact different roles in different contexts. They draw on different justifications
for what they do (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006[1991]). An artisan may collect motorcycles and
care for aging parents when not baking bread. An inspector may ride horses and raise children
when not at work. The logic that they both apply to artisanship and regulation is shaped by these
other interests and experiences.
This has two methodological implications. First, phenomena can be understood only
through detailed investigation of local, specific practices. Second, researchers (just like the actors
and phenomena they study) also hold multiple identities and logics together within one person,
one research study. It is this very multiplicity in a researcher, this “split and contradictory self,”

18

that enables her to understand other points of view and to make sense of what she observes in the
field (Haraway 1988, p. 586).

III.

METHODS
This research consisted of three phases. In the first phase, semi-structured interviews

were conducted with artisan bread, cheese, and jam producers and state food safety inspectors. In
the second phase, field observations were conducted of bread and cheese production and food
safety inspection. The design of field observations was informed by findings made during the
interview phase. In the third phase, two focus groups were conducted of artisans and inspectors
in order to discuss preliminary findings and provide a check of internal validity of findings made
during the first two phases. Both focus groups involved artisans together with inspectors.
Selection Bias. Artisans and inspectors participated voluntarily in the study, introducing a
selection bias.

21

The bias was arguably unavoidable. The study was exploratory; empirical data

on the food safety regulation of processors (including artisans and other small- and mediumscale processors) was unavailable yet would have been necessary in developing selection criteria.
In selecting food safety inspectors, initial plans were to adapt Hutter’s (1989) typology of
persuasive and insistent styles of enforcement. This proved unworkable when MDARD staff
indicated that individual inspectors drew on different styles of enforcement in different
situations.
My consequently cooperative relationships with research participants, while also
introducing bias, allowed greater access to food safety inspections than has been reported in

21

Further discussion is in Chapter 2 (page 88).
19

other agrifood policy studies. This access helped generate elements of an agenda for further
research, which are presented at the end of each chapter in this dissertation.
More detail on the methods used in this study appears in the Appendices to this chapter.
The methodology presented in what follows applied particularly to the field observation phase of
the study. The remainder of the chapter focuses on field observations.

IV.

EXOGENOUS INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PHENOMENA
The interactions described up to this point represent endogenous interactions. They

involve the humans and non-humans that make up specific phenomena, such as artisanship or
regulation. In addition, however, the humans, non-humans, and logics involved in any given
phenomenon also play roles in enacting other phenomena. Exogenous interactions occur between
different phenomena. Regulatory and artisan practice may appear to be quite unrelated to each
other and to be enacted by quite different sets of human and non-human actors. Yet artisanship is
among the phenomena that shape regulatory practice, and regulations are among the phenomena
that shape artisan practice.

22

The present section focuses on the interactions introduced by the research, a third
phenomenon. A research study is a phenomenon like any other. To enact a research study, a
researcher musters a corps of human and non-human actors. These may include emails,
schedules, and data collection forms, as well as personalities, work cultures, and the sides of the
bed on which researchers get up on the days they are in the field. In this section, I first elaborate

22

Compare to the notions of co-production (Jasanoff 2004) and co-construction (Murdoch
2001). Exogenous interactions between regulatory and artisan practice are further discussed in
Chapter 3.
20

this idea with reference to other ethnographic research. I then describe my own interactions with
participants during the present study.
A.

The Researcher as an Exogenous Actor
Interaction between the researcher and the researched unavoidably shapes ethnographic

fieldwork. A researcher entering the field becomes an exogenous actor implicated in the
phenomena under investigation. Our methods “do not simply describe but in some measure help
to do the realities that they discover” (Law 2008, p. 640, ital. mine; see also Law and Urry 2004).
The researcher experiences the field, and participants also experience research. They are asked to
participate in a study, such as by speaking with a researcher or being observed. How participants
understand a study and how they see researchers affect what they tell researchers and allow them
to see.
Two bodies of ethnographic scholarship are particularly helpful in developing this
perspective. First, ANT and related scholarship address the role of the researcher in enacting the
phenomena under investigation—the two-way traffic between the viewer and the viewed (Law
2004). As an Australian teacher in Nigeria, Verran experienced disconcertment on realizing
profound differences between Western and Yoruba number systems (1999). Yet this
disconcertment enabled her to understand, and move between, different logics and different
versions of reality. This finding hinged on her interaction, as a teacher and researcher, with
students and other teachers.

23

Mol opens the book that describes her study of arteriosclerosis

23

Some ANT scholarship depicts research as detached observation. The present chapter aims to
correct this depiction. Latour and Woolgar’s “observer” (1979) clearly interacts with other
scientists and participates in laboratory work. Yet apart from periodic references to discussions
with scientists and to scientists’ reactions to their study, Latour and Woolgar offer little insight
into the unavoidably interpersonal nature of their study.
21

(2002) by situating herself in relation to her fieldwork. A network of human and non-human
actors emerges, all of which mediate her interaction with her research subjects, and their
interaction with Mol: her contacts at the hospital, her bicycle, and her lab coat, as well as the
mass of medical, philosophical, and sociological literatures that inform her approach.
Second, this perspective can frame ethnographic studies of artisanship. The notion of
exogenous interaction provides a means of conceptualizing the process by which the researcher
“connects” with participants in the field (e.g., DeWalt and DeWalt 2002). “It is much easier to
walk into a bakery than into a baker’s life,” Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame observe, describing
their initially unsuccessful attempts to establish dialogue with French bakers (1981, p. 175).
Skilled ethnographers achieve a level of comfort and familiarity with their subjects that allow
them to “blend in” with the research situation, without creating a feeling of invasion. Paxson
(2012) developed collegial relationships with cheesemakers, who not only consented to speak
with her in interviews but also took the effort to train her in cheesemaking, enabling her to
conduct participant observation. Terrio (1998, 2000) gained the trust of diverse actors in the
politically charged world of French chocolatiers. She attributes her initial access to this
community in part to the chocolatiers’ (mistaken) assumption that she, as an American, would be
able to provide advice on marketing and sales.
This conduct of ethnographic research depends on two-way interaction between the
research and the research subject. Dialogue and relationships are central in developing
knowledge (Greenwood and Levin 1998). Terrio’s participants, she observes, “chose me as much
as I chose them” (1998, p. 26). Like the access that Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame eventually
gained to bakers, Terrio’s access to chocolatiers was predicated on the chocolatiers’ belief that

22

her work had something to offer them. In other words, they enrolled her, and her work, in the
series of interactions through which their phenomena were enacted (Star and Griesemer 1989).
B.

The Interaction of This Researcher with Artisanship and Regulation
Conducting fieldwork in relatively small production facilities means working in close

proximity to participants as they go about their activities. In the current study, walking into the
production area of an artisan bakery felt much the same as walking into the baker’s life (cf
Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame 1981, cited above). In planning for observations, I initially expected
to be a fly on the wall and to interact little with research participants. This was expected to be
particularly easy during the first two observations. Both artisans, a baker and a cheesemaker,
were already familiar with my research. During earlier interviews, we had had lively, extended
conversations about their work and about the question of regulations. I planned to merely show
up to watch them work, learn more about what they did, and stay out of the way. This is
consistent with the conventions of scientific method, which demand that the process of data
collection not influence the data. The researcher is not to affect the phenomena under
investigation. One hopes that if the research is well designed, research subjects behave in the
presence of a researcher the same as they would unobserved.
Yet if one is close enough to a phenomenon to collect information on activities, nonhumans, and other “routinely occurring minutiae” (Latour and Woolgar 1979, p. 27), then one
cannot help but interact. It is impossible to be a detached spectator, particularly when standing
with an artisan and inspector in a small room. I had gone into the field to observe phenomena,

23

and the phenomena watched back.

24

Moreover, not all of the actors appeared comfortable being

followed (cf Latour 2005). My notetaking—even simply my presence—could not help but
impinge on the practices that I observed. The more I tried to remain unobtrusive and stay out of
the way, the more obtrusive I became. I felt like a voyeur.

25

This section applies the concept of exogenous interaction to the conduct of this fieldwork.
It foregrounds and examines the ways in which participants interacted with my study and with
me.

26

The Research Study as an Actor. The participants engaged with the research study as much
as the study engaged (through data collection) with them. They wanted, of course, to know about
the study of which they were a part. They wanted to know what they were dealing with—to
know who this actor was, this research. Facilitating this interaction between the two phenomena
meant 1) responding to their questions about preliminary findings, 2) responding to their
questions about data collection, and 3) recognizing that the research could serve their purposes as
much as it served mine.
24

Terrio recounts her alarm on finding that some of the French chocolatiers who participated in
her research later published a synopsized and altered version of her study without her knowledge
or permission. “The irony was, of course, that the ‘hegemonic ethnographic gaze’ of the
American anthropologist had been met and transformed by the so-called objects of that gaze”
(1998, p. 25).
25
The comedic improbability of such an expectation is dramatized in the feature film “Kitchen
Stories” (2003, Norway, dir. Bert Hamer). A researcher is stationed in the corner of a farmer’s
kitchen to observe his cooking practices The institute conducting the research has prohibited
interaction between researchers and subjects. This approach to ethnography proves to be
conceptually flawed and impossible to carry out. Thanks to Larry Busch for alerting me to this
film.
26
This conceptual perspective is consonant with feminist methodologies that recognize the
agency of the objects of research and that promote reflexivity on the part of researchers
(Haraway 1988; Harding 2001).
24

First, artisans and inspectors were curious about preliminary findings. They wanted to
know what I had learned from other participants. I initially feared that discussing this would
“contaminate” the study—that it would affect what they told me and influence their activities
during observations. I feared this particularly as a key preliminary finding was that many artisans
reported positive experiences with food safety inspectors. Yet one way or another, the research
would have affected participant activities during observations. Not disclosing this information
would have also influenced what participants said and did. What represented methodological
purity to me would have appeared to be secrecy to them. Coyness on my part may have made
them distrustful, worried, and distracted (McKay 2002; Oakley 1981). Indeed, I found that
telling them about the ideas that I was developing provided a kind of icebreaker; it cleared the
air.
Second, participants needed to trust what the research would do with them and their
work, particularly as I was witness to details that participants may have deemed sensitive,
confidential, or incriminating. Some of them wanted to know why I was writing down so much
about what they did, drawing floor plans and making lists of objects, with dimensions, materials,
and uses. Delivering a theoretical response about ANT would have missed the point. I instead
explained that if I did not write down details, I would forget things that had seemed obvious at
the time, and that I would therefore not understand issues that arose during inspections. This is,
after all, ANT at its simplest, methodologically speaking. If participants were interested, I also
explained that I was using a theory that warned against making general assumptions about things
like artisanship and regulation without looking in close detail at what happened in the real world.
Third, participants approached the research as a means of communication and action. For
some inspectors, the study had the potential to prompt action among their superiors at MDARD,
25

such as through increasing training on certain issues. As one said, “If there’s anything you can
include in your report, it’s that we need to understand how artisans do things, because a lot of us
have never seen anything like this [facility] before.” Artisans, too, used the research to convey
positive and negative views on regulations and inspector practices, views that they hoped would
effect change. They took the opportunity to learn about each other, asking what I had seen other
bakers and cheesemakers do. To me, these exchanges provided data, helping me understand how
participants worked and how they thought about their work. To participants, the research
provided a means to their own ends. The research represented a mediator in participants’
networks by transforming “the meaning…[that the data were] supposed to carry” (Latour 2005,
p. 39).
The Researcher as an Actor. Giving participants an agreeable experience in my research
required that I become comfortable, myself, with my own disruptive role and with the bricolage
of fieldwork. Being a fly on the wall was not possible, regardless of the size of the processing
plants.

27

I had initially planned to avoid interaction with artisans and inspectors as they

conducted their work so that I could see things as they “normally” went. However, observing
artisanship and inspection meant standing in processing rooms that were often as small as 15 by
30 feet, together with one or two other people who were occupied with processing duties or with
inspections. Other facilities were as large as 5,000 square feet. Even here, groups of employees
eyed me as I walked around in a white lab coat and hairnet taking notes on a clipboard. Although
managers had usually explained who I was and what I would be doing, I looked “clinical.” To

27

The metaphor is apposite. Flies in processing plants pose risks of contamination. As long as I
tried to be a fly on the wall, I felt like a contaminant in my own research.
26

artisans, I looked like a food inspector noting criticisms about them. To food inspectors, I looked
like a researcher noting criticisms about them.
The question instead became how I would interact with participants to make their
experience of research as mutually productive and agreeable as possible. I looked to processors
and inspectors to determine my approach at each facility. Interacting with participants in the
manner most comfortable to them proved more effective than trying to establish a standard field
protocol (DeWalt and DeWalt 2002; Law 2004). In some instances, producers were eager to
chat, to hear about my research and weigh in on my findings. They offered coffee, samples of
bread and cheese, and periodically asked for help with minor tasks. In other cases, my presence
appeared distracting, particularly to people who were accustomed to working alone. A
cheesemaker who spilled a small amount of milk while transferring it into a milk vat glanced
quickly over at me as if he had been caught in a mistake. (I did not record the spill in my notes,
but I remember the unnecessary look of embarrassment.) A baker and his assistant spoke very
little during the four hours that I was at their facility, apart from brief allusions to political
conversations that they otherwise often had. Some inspectors included me in conversations with
processors, while with others I held questions for a later time.
My interaction with participants permitted the access to, and insight into, regulatory and
artisan practice that strengthen an exploratory study. The selection bias that is implicit in the
design of this study, and my ensuing cooperative relationships with participants, were discussed
on page 19. Brief remarks on addressing this bias in any further data analysis appear in Chapter 2
(page 88).

27

V.

OBSERVATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
The methodology developed in this study sought to suspend broad assumptions about

artisanship, regulation, and the relationship between them and, instead, to closely observe their
enactment in practice. It dispensed with broadly abstract notions of artisanship and regulation to
focus on the cast of human and non-human actors involved in enacting these phenomena. These
interactions are endogenous as well as exogenous. Endogenous interactions occur, for example,
among an artisan and the non-humans involved in enacting artisanship. In exogenous
interactions, different phenomena are involved in each other’s enactment. Artisanship and
regulation interact with and shape each other.
A research study on the relationship between artisanship and regulation involves, of
course, these two phenomena. But not only the two. The research itself introduces a third
phenomenon and a new set of exogenous interactions. The research shapes the other phenomena
and affects their interactions with each other. This interaction is two-way. Participants have
agency; they “look back” at the researcher, just as the researcher looks at them. In this study,
conducting fieldwork involved facilitating interactions between my own phenomenon (the study)
and the phenomena under investigation. Rather than remain detached and aloof, I responded to
participant questions about preliminary findings and data collection and recognized that the
research may serve their purposes as much as it served mine. Rather than establish a standard
protocol, I took my cue from participants in deciding how to interact with them.
A.

Observations on the Application of the Methodology
This section describes the insights generated by the study’s methodological attention to

non-humans, logics, and difficulties, and it discusses the implications of interpersonal interaction
between researcher and participants.
28

Non-Humans. The focus on non-humans led to findings in three areas. First, it
paradoxically foregrounded the importance of interpersonal rapport. In “following the actors”
(Latour 2005), I found that many interactions could not be described in physical terms. The tone
of discussions between artisans and inspectors, the trust or distrust that they had developed over
time, the ways in which each of them handled disagreements—all of these figured in the
interaction between artisanship and regulation. How inspectors interpreted what they saw was
influenced by their interaction with an artisan and by their previous experience of him or her.

28

Whether an artisan adopted or challenged the inspector’s directives was influenced by a sense of
fairness and by his or her trust in the inspector’s expertise. Interactions were shaped by the
interpersonal relationship formed between artisans and inspectors as well as by the non-humans
(such as equipment and ingredients) to which the study attended.

29

Second, and relatedly, the data collection instrument developed to characterize
interpersonal interaction only confirmed the nuanced character of these interactions. Using the
typology described in Appendix E, interactions between artisans and inspectors were to be
characterized as corrective, instructive, clarifying, or conversational. Yet interactions could
rarely be characterized according to only one type; in fact, many of them fell into all four
categories. When correcting an artisan’s practices, inspectors also usually instructed. Artisans
and inspectors conversed about the correction, and they clarified details as needed. The tone was
almost always pleasant and relaxed.

28
29

This point is elaborated in Chapter 3 (page 127).

In fact, regulatory practice in Michigan hinges on interpersonal interaction. Inspectors expect
to speak with a designated staff person during inspection visits. If this person is not present, the
inspector is not able to discuss potential problems in order to determine whether they are
violations.
29

Third, the methodology’s attention to non-humans foregrounded artisans’ use of
“industrial” approaches and their concerns with contemporary notions of food safety.
illustrate: Milk protein residue

31

30

To

and trashcans may appear to have little to do with distinctly

artisan practice. Yet using this methodology, I could not separate the mundane from the
distinctive. Like other food processing, artisanship that is practiced without sanitation can be
deadly (Lichfield 1999). Excising actors like milk protein residue and trashcans from an
investigation of the relationship between artisanship and regulation would have privileged an a
priori conception of artisanship over what is observed in its actual practice.
Logics. My logic affected how I saw actors and actions and how I approached my
interactions in the field (Harding 2001). Throughout fieldwork, as in life, I am comfortable with
uncertainty, gray areas, and conceptual mess. My logic necessarily influenced preliminary
findings, which indicated that positive artisan-inspector relations provide a way for artisanship
and inspection to shape each other in ways acceptable to both actors. The idea that the regulatory
process can be made to “work” for smaller producers without a radical revision of regulatory
requirements suited my reformist predispositions. It also gave me a particular message to try out
on participants when they asked what I was learning—which provided an informal test of
internal validity (Yin 2014). A researcher conducting the same observations with a different
logic may have seen difficulties here, while I did not.
Difficulties. During observations of production, difficulties brought to my attention the
non-human actors that would later figure in inspections. Difficulties encountered in
30
31

This point is elaborated in Chapter 3 (page 119).

When milk is heated during cheesemaking, proteins precipitate and eventually collect on
equipment surfaces. This “milkstone” is difficult to clean and can harbor microorganisms.
30

cheesemaking, for example, foregrounded actors that are otherwise invisible. The aging rooms
used by cheesemakers are quiet and fragrant places, populated by cheese wheels arranged on
shelves. The cheese is at rest. The effect is earthy and orderly. Yet there is vigorous invisible
activity. Microorganisms are ubiquitous; some are borne on ambient air, and some are
propagated on specific cheeses. The air is an actor here, as are the microorganisms and humidity
of the air. For this reason, some types of cheese need to be separated from others so as not to
introduce unwanted types of microorganisms. A cheesemaker who had not attended sufficiently
to this separation pointed out the wheels that were not developing as intended, difficulties that
foregrounded microorganisms, humidity, and air. Later, during the inspection, the cheesemaker
and the inspector discussed the ventilation system and the maintenance of the wooden aging
boards. My understanding of the role that these invisible non-human actors played was critical to
my understanding of this inspector-artisan interaction.
Watching for difficulties also enabled me to engage in casual conversation with artisans
while simultaneously attending to key points of data collection—that is, to play the dual roles of
“researcher” and “person” while interacting with artisans.
Interpersonal Interaction. The boundary between a study and the phenomenon under
investigation is more fluid and negotiated in ethnography than it is in studies that use methods
such as surveys. When a survey is conducted, the researcher and the research study engage less
directly with a phenomenon.

32

“The study” is an actor in survey research just as it is in

ethnography; respondents who complete surveys interact with the research, wanting to know
how their information will be used and wondering about the intent behind some questions. Yet

32

See Chapter 3 for more on fluid, negotiated boundaries between phenomena.
31

within the more generous boundary space created in ethnography, the researcher and participants
are able to clarify issues such as these. Moreover, researcher-participant interactions are data.
Participant reactions (such as in the case of the embarrassed cheesemaker spilling milk, above)
yield information about a phenomenon that would not emerge outside of interactions.
On the other hand, the distance between a researcher and survey participants creates an
anonymity that may encourage participants to share information that they may withhold in an
ethnographic context.
B.

Implications for Further Research
Participant Observation. Participant observation would both contribute to and detract from

other research on this issue. Incorporating participant observation into this study would have
enriched both the findings and the role of the researcher as exogenous actor. What a researcher
can know by cataloguing non-humans, actions, and interviewee statements about activities is
different from what he or she can know by participating in the same activities. Participant
observation would substantively change the researcher’s understanding of the actors, actions, and
logics involved in enacting regulation and artisanship. Artisans and inspectors exercise embodied
knowledge as they interact with non-humans and with each other (Paxson 2011). Much of this
knowledge cannot be communicated cognitively but is instead generated in a “connective tissue
of action” (Sudnow 2001, p. 59).
Yet participant observation would have imposed new difficulties on the fieldwork. It
would have demanded more of artisans, each of whom would have needed to train me in his or
her varied approaches, and then risked the consequences for product quality. As a novice, I may
not have attained a degree of embodied skill to understand artisan practice or been able to

32

translate it into research data. Helping with simple tasks like washing dishes may have been
feasible, but embodied knowledge of dishwashing would have added little to my understanding
of food processing. Further, participant observation could not have been conducted at the same
time as the notetaking that the present methodology required.
Social Justice. This research aimed to bracket questions of power and social justice. In this
respect it departs from other work on smaller-scale and local agrifood production for which
social justice is among the defining concerns of alternative agrifood systems (e.g., Allen and
Guthman 2006; Kloppenburg et al. 1996).
My decision not to assume that inspectors exercised (undue) authority over artisans
stemmed, in fact, from a concern for methodological justice. Some advocates of artisanship may
argue that inspectors’ perspectives had little place in this research and that the research should
instead have favored the views of artisans as the less powerful set of actors. Yet power comes in
too many different forms to make such generalizations (cf Kirsch 1999). To identify inspectors
with “the system” and artisans as independent of it would have denied inspectors the opportunity
to establish their own identities in their interactions with me. It would have blinkered the study
against the ways in which artisans do exercise power. Conceptually, it would have confused what
it sought to explain with the explanation (Latour 2005).
The methodology generated new insights into interactions between artisans and
inspectors exactly because these interactions involved more than power asymmetries. However,
in a study in which inspections are more contentious, or differences between artisans and
inspectors more problematic, this methodological neutrality would be more difficult than it was
in this study.

33

APPENDICES

34

APPENDIX A: DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF METHODS
The methods used in this fieldwork were described briefly at the beginning of Section III.
This appendix provides more detail on participants and describes the three phases of the
research: semi-structured interviews, field observations, and focus groups.

I.

DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS
Table 1 and Table 2 provide descriptive information on participants.

Table 1. Participation in research phases: Numbers and types of participants
Participant totals
(unique participants)
Artisans
Bread
Cheese
Jam
Inspectors
Food
Dairy

n = 34
n = 10
n = 18
n=6
n = 21
n = 13
n=8

Phase 1
Interviews

Phase 2
Field
observations
n = 11
n=5
n=6

n = 24
n=8
n = 10
n=6
n=9
n=6
n=3

n = 10
n=6
n = 4*

Phase 3
Focus groups
#1
#2
n = 13
n = 10
mix of
food
n = 13
start-ups
n=2
n=1
n=1
n=2

*During field observations, 1 dairy inspector was accompanied to inspections of 3
facilities.

Table 2. Participants in interviews and field observations: Years of experience as licensed processors or
practicing inspectors
Participant type
artisan processor (n = 27)
†
inspector (n = 19)
†

Min.
1
3

Max.
30
26

Values for 3 of the 19 inspectors were missing.

35

Years

Avg.
10
14

Median
6
16

A Project Advisory Committee of stakeholders was assembled at the outset of the study
to advise on participant selection, interview questions, and project evaluation, and to provide
guidance throughout the project. Members:
•

Kevin Besey, Director, MDARD Food and Dairy Division

•

Siobhan Kent, Department Analyst, MDARD Food Safety Planning and Response

•

Natasha Lantz, Community Liaison, Marquette Food Co-op, Marquette, Mich.

•

Sue Spagnuolo, Cheesemaker, Greenbush Farms, St. Johns, Mich.

•

Ron Steiner, Director, The Starting Block Incubator Kitchen, Hart, Mich.
For clarity of analysis, the research focused on Michigan food laws rather than FDA,

USDA, or EPA regulations.

II.

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
Participant Selection. Artisans were selected to represent producers of cheese, bread, and

jam, three common processed products in Michigan. Managers of two incubator kitchens in
which jam is produced were also included. This selection of products captured a small diversity
of producers and inspectors in different parts of Michigan. The products are inspected by the two
types of inspectors working in MDARD’s Food and Dairy Division: bakers and jam makers are
inspected by Food inspectors, and cheesemakers are inspected by Dairy inspectors. Apart from
this distinction, Food and Dairy inspectors are assigned to geographic areas rather than to
specific product types.
Artisans were identified through 1) suggestions made and contacts facilitated by the
Project Advisory Committee; 2) internet searches for producers who met the study’s working

36

definition of artisanship, emphasizing handcraft production, engaging in each step of the
production process, and producing at a small or medium scale; 3) “snowball sampling”—that is,
processors contacted early in the project recommended other processors (Corbin and Strauss
2008); and 4) the assistance of agrifood professionals and resource providers. Participants’ own
definitions of artisanship were further discussed during interviews.
MDARD Food and Dairy supervisors identified inspectors whose areas included artisan
facilities. Inspectors’ participation was voluntary. Interviews focused on participants as
individuals, not artisans and their inspectors in pairs. The artisan clients of some inspectors did
not participate, and the inspectors of some artisans did not participate. In some instances, both an
artisan and his or her inspector participated. Selection was determined in part by artisans’ and
inspectors’ availability during periods of the fieldwork and their willingness to participate.
Data Collection. Artisans and inspectors participated in semi-structured, one-on-one
interviews that lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and averaged 60 minutes. Most interviews
were audio recorded and transcribed. When interviews were not recorded, notes were taken
manually. Instruments appear in Appendices B and C to this chapter.
Data Analysis. Interview transcripts and notes were coded for emerging concepts (Corbin
and Strauss 2008) using NVivo, a qualitative data analysis program. Two passes were made
through each transcript or set of notes to capture themes that emerged during this process.

III.

FIELD OBSERVATIONS
Participant Selection. Two types of artisan processing, bread and cheese making, were

selected for field observations. Artisans in both types of production are active throughout

37

Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (Michigan Cheesemakers Cooperative 2012; Rector 2009). They
are inspected by the two types of inspectors working in MDARD’s Food and Dairy Division;
bakers are inspected by Food inspectors, and cheesemakers are inspected by Dairy inspectors.
Twelve cases were selected for the field observation phase of the study, a number
feasible within the six months available for data collection.

33

Cases were selected based on three

criteria: 1) artisans met the study’s working definition of artisanship by emphasizing handcraft
production, engaging in each step of the production process, and producing at a small or medium
scale, 2) the facility had an inspection scheduled within the period of the study,

34

and 3) both the

artisan and his or her inspector were willing to participate in the study.
I first observed processing operations in order to familiarize myself with the actors and
activities involved in each artisan’s version of artisanship. Observations of production lasted
between 2 and 4 hours, averaging 3 hours. Artisans conversed with me during this time and
responded to questions about their operations and their approaches to artisanship. Second, I
returned to the artisan facility with the facility’s food safety inspector in order to observe the
inspection. Inspections lasted between 1 and 3 hours, averaging 2 hours. Inspectors explained
their practices to me as they worked, and in one-on-one conversations during or following the
inspection.
Data Collection Instruments. Data collection instruments were constructed to generate a
detailed record of the series of activities and actors involved in artisan processing, food safety
33

A total of 23 observations were conducted: observation of artisan processing at 11 facilities,
followed by observation of inspection at these facilities. In the twelfth case, inspection but not
production was observed.
34
MDARD provided me lists of facilities, facility contact information, and inspection due dates.
38

inspections, and the interaction between the two. Data collection was formed around the
concepts of non-humans, difficulties, and logics. Instruments appear in Appendices D and E to
this chapter.
Instruments were designed to compel myself to attend to the details of artisan practice,
bracket my assumptions about artisanship, and reduce the extent to which my notes reflected
subjective impressions. It would have been easy to record subjective impressions of production
or inspection, noting things that appeared “typical” or “remarkable.” I had not worked in artisan
or other food manufacturing plants, and I had little familiarity with the practicalities of
commercial-scale processing. My experience with food safety inspections was limited.
Subjective impressions, while of possible interest in another study, would have shifted the data
away the human and non-human actors involved in artisan practice and toward the learning
process of a researcher unfamiliar with commercial artisanship and inspection.
Preliminary observations had demonstrated that research notes made without closely
following a carefully specified guide omitted important details, omissions that would have
impeded subsequent observations of inspection. For example, many work surfaces are
constructed of stainless steel. Because stainless steel is common in food manufacturing, it is easy
to miss this detail. Yet during some inspections, work surface materials became a concern,
foregrounding these non-humans in the exogenous interactions between artisanship and
regulation. Without a record of the non-humans used in all facilities, I would not understand the
differing roles that stainless steel, wood, plastic, and other non-humans played in the enactment
of artisanship or regulation or in the interaction between them.

39

Data Recording. Notes were taken by hand. Data collection involved a pen, paper, and
clipboard, in addition to the white laboratory coat and hairnet that I wore. This limited set of
tools made me more flexible, allowing me to stand close to activities and maneuver out of the
way of artisans and inspectors when needed. Notes on paper provided the data in a tangible,
visible form that I could show to participants if they so requested, as some of them did.
The use of a voice-activated audio recorder was initially considered but not adopted for
three reasons. First, the quality of a preliminary test was poor. Second, field observations were
intended to interfere as little as possible with processing and inspection. The use of an audio
recorder—capturing possibly private remarks—would have been intrusive. Third, electronic
devices would have been sensitive to processing conditions. Cheesemaking facilities are often
humid. Many surfaces in bakeries sport at least a thin layer of flour dust.
The act of recording data by hand created an immediacy of interaction with the written
data that neither a computer nor an audio recorder would have allowed.

35

Convention permits

handwritten notes a degree of messiness not typically tolerated in word-processed documents.
Details were recorded in a less processed or polished form than they would have been if typed;
they could be scribbled down without being “thought through.” Data collection forms were
completed as actions were taken and actors appeared; corrections and comments were later
written impromptu without the need to add columns to word processing tables, find a specific
place in a computer file, or remember what had been dictated into a recorder. This allowed me to
engage more closely with participants while also taking careful and copious notes.

35

Researchers engage with data collection technologies in different ways. Researchers of a
different generation may be less likely to share the experiences described here.
40

Data Analysis. Notes from observations were typed and organized in Microsoft Word files.
A section in each file identified themes and findings and offered preliminary analysis.

IV.

FOCUS GROUPS
Findings that emerged from interviews and field observations were discussed during two

focus groups. Each group lasted 1.5 hours. Focus groups provided a check of internal validity for
the study. Participant details appear above, in Table 1 (page 35). Discussion agendas appear in
Appendices F and G to this chapter.
The first focus group included MDARD Dairy supervisors and cheesemakers from
Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Invitations were sent to all artisan and farmstead cheesemakers on
the master list I had developed. All cheesemakers who responded and were able to attend
participated. The second group included a mix of food entrepreneurs in Detroit. Invitations were
sent to a food entrepreneur listserv along with an introduction by the listserv facilitator. All
entrepreneurs who responded and were able to attend participated. An MDARD inspector whose
area included Detroit participated.

41

APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT—ARTISANS
Artisan production: For this study, I’m defining it as production where the producer is involved
with each step of the process, and where there is at least some handcrafting. Is “artisan” a word
that you use to describe what you do?
About you
• How did you get into this type of production—what prompted you to start producing
food?
• What philosophy or principles drive what you do?
Experiences with Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development inspections
• Describe your experiences being inspected. What makes an inspection go well? Not well?
• What’s a “good inspector”? What makes an inspector not so good? Describe attitudes,
practices, etc.
• Are there producer attitudes and practices that do and do not work well when dealing
with an inspector?
• What have you learned from inspectors? What have they learned from you?
Impact on your business
• What role does regulation play in your ability and desire to grow?
• How do regulations affect your production decisions? Do regulations limit what you
decide to produce?
• Have regulations helped your business? Not helped it? How?
• How do you define food safety? In what way, if any, does this differ from regulatory
definitions?
Information needs
• How have you learned about regulations?
• Are there aspects of food safety that you would like to understand better? What are they?
• What advice concerning inspectors and inspections do you have for other artisans?
• In what ways, if any, are regulations difficult to follow—for example, clarity, consistency
of enforcement, expense, etc.
Suggested changes in policy or inspector trainings
• Do you recommend any changes in regulations to accommodate artisan processing
operations?
• Do you suggest any trainings for inspectors to help them work with operations like
yours?
What purposes do you see food safety regulations as serving?

42

APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT—FOOD SAFETY INSPECTORS
Artisan production: For this study, I’m defining it as production where the producer is involved
with each step of the process, and where there is at least some handcrafting. I’d like to hear about
the artisan plants that you inspect. Are they different from other, larger plants? If so, how?
About you
• How did you decide to become an inspector?
• What philosophy or principles drive what you do?
Educational needs of artisans
• What educational needs do you see among artisan processors?
• Do artisan processors sometimes misinterpret regulations? If so, which regulations?
• What regulations or aspects of regulations do processors have the most difficulty
understanding?
• Do artisan processors sometimes understand “food safety” differently than you do? How
do their definitions differ?
Experiences evaluating artisan processing plants
• Are artisan processing plants more challenging to inspect than other plants that you
inspect? If so, in what ways?
• Are there corrective actions that you take frequently with artisan plants? What? Why do
you think they’re necessary?
• What attitudes do artisan producers have about regulation?
• Have you learned anything from inspecting artisans? If so, what?
Regulatory changes
• Some small producers would like regulatory changes that accommodate small
entrepreneurs, for example by requiring less costly investments. Do you think that
regulations could change in this way?
Training of regulators
• Do you recommend any changes to guidance documents or trainings, to prepare you
better for artisan processor evaluations? If so, describe.
• Have there been questions that were difficult to resolve during an evaluation without
consulting with other regulatory staff? What types of questions?
What makes someone a “good producer?”
What makes someone a “good inspector?”

43

APPENDIX D: FIELD OBSERVATION INSTRUMENT—ARTISAN PROCESSING
Questions
1. What is important to you in the work that you do and about doing it these specific ways?
Why? How else could it be done, and why not in that way? What principles drive your
approach?
2. Has what’s important to you changed over the years?
3. How has your operation changed over time? What changes in products, equipment, or
practices have you made? Why?
4. Do you have any thoughts about the “industrial food system”? Do you see yourself as
separate from it, part of it, etc.? In what ways?
5. What’s your annual production?
6. How long have you been in business?
7. Do you trust your inspector more than you trust the MDA?
Objects
Table heading row:
object #

object

dimension

material

where

how used

other

Activities
Activities were listed, including these details: action, materials, equipment, tools, purpose, time
Sketches and plans
Items and locations were numbered to correspond to the other lists.

44

APPENDIX E: FIELD OBSERVATION INSTRUMENT—FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION
Questions for inspectors before inspection
1. Have you inspected this facility before?
2. What are your expectations, hopes, etc.?
3. What is important to you in the work that you do? Why? What principles drive your
approach?
4. What different interests does your work serve? In what ways? How do you define the “public
interest,” and how does the public interest relate to the economic interests of producers?
5. How has your work changed over time? What changes in rules, equipment, or practices have
been made? Why?
6. Describe an “ideal” production operation. What attitudes and practices characterize it?
7. How have inspections of artisan operations affected what you do?
8. Describe how your work fits into the regulatory process.
9. How long have you been an inspector?
10. Does hands-on production introduce risks that more automated production doesn’t have?
11. What makes someone a good producer? Good inspector?
12. How long have you been an inspector?
Typology of interactions. Column headings in table:
• what
• type
• justification for claims
• interests at stake
• practices involved
• non-humans involved
• actions that either takes or plans to take
• tone
Guide for completing the table:
1. Type of interaction
• Corrective. These interactions concern corrective action required by the inspector, and
they may or may not involve violations.
• Instructive. These include interactions in which inspectors explain aspects of regulations
or provide guidance on achieving compliance. These interactions typify the educational
and technical assistance roles that inspectors may play. They do not concern violations.
• Clarifying. These interactions serve to clarify matters that are related to the operation or
compliance but that do not raise concerns on the part of producers or inspectors. For
example, an inspector may want to know where flour bins are kept.
• Conversational. These interactions include small talk and other matters that appear to be
unrelated to the production operation or regulatory compliance.
• Non-verbal interactions. I anticipate relatively few non-verbal interactions but will be
prepared to record those that occur.
2. Justifications for the claims made
45

3. The interests at stake in the interaction, for example the public safety or the producer’s
economic interests, and whether these are stated explicitly or implicitly by producers and
regulators.
4. The practices involved
5. The non-humans that the interaction concerns or to which producers or regulators refer
during the conversation
6. Actions that producers or regulators take or plan to take following the inspection
7. The tone of each actor during the interaction

46

APPENDIX F: AGENDA FOR FOCUS GROUP #1
1. Overview
2. Research consent forms
3. Introductions
• Your name
• Your business’s name
• Where
• Type of cheese
• How long you have been making cheese
4. Review ground rules
5. Cheesemaker experiences with regulations and inspections
• Identify positive aspects of Dairy regulations and inspections
• Discuss regulations or practices that are unclear
• Discuss regulations or practices that you would like to see changed
6. Next steps
• Action items for MDARD
• Action items for cheesemakers
• Other resources to contact or develop
Include what, who, timeline, and how to communicate it.
7. Wrap up
8. Stipends

47

APPENDIX G: AGENDA FOR FOCUS GROUP #2
1. Overview
2. Research consent forms
3. Introductions
• Your name
• Your business’s name
• Where you’re located
• What you make
• How long you have been producing
4. Review ground rules
5. Your own goals for the discussion
6. Experiences with regulations and inspections
• Identify positive aspects of regulations and inspections
• Discuss regulations or practices that are unclear
• Discuss regulations or practices that you would like to see changed
7. Next steps
• Action items for MDARD
• Action items for food entrepreneurs
• Other resources to contact or develop
Include what, who, timeline, and how to communicate it.
8. Wrap up
9. Stipends

48

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49

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CHAPTER 2
THE COMPLEMENTARY INTERESTS OF ECONOMIC ACTORS: FOOD SAFETY REGULATIONS
AND ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING IN MICHIGAN
ABSTRACT
Economic theories of regulation over the past century have juxtaposed the interests of
different actors in order to explain the motivations behind regulations and to frame regulatory
impacts. This chapter interprets current debate about appropriate regulatory responses to smallscale and localized agrifood production in the US in terms of claims about the interests that
regulations serve and do not serve. The chapter argues that the interests served by regulations are
not necessarily juxtaposed but can, in fact, be complementary. It presents exploratory
ethnographic research on the food safety regulation of artisan food processing in Michigan that
addresses the questions: Whose interests does the regulatory process serve? In what ways?
According to whom? Semi-structured interviews are conducted with artisans and inspectors, and
field observations are conducted of artisan processing and food safety inspections. Artisans and
inspectors both indicate that there is a dynamic of complementarity and synergy among their
respective interests, rather than one of competing or mutually exclusive interests. Implications
for further research and for policy are considered.

I. INTRODUCTION
Enthusiasm for artisan processing accompanies the growing popularity of small-scale and
localized agrifood production in the US (Lyson and Guptill 2004) and Europe (Bessière 1998;
Renting et al. 2003).

36

Some advocates of artisan and other small-scale and local products

36

As elsewhere in this dissertation, artisan processing is defined here as processing conducted
at a small or medium scale in which producers emphasize manual production techniques and are
involved at each step of the process. It involves batch rather than continuous production and
55

contend that food safety regulations hamper this trend (Ramer 2013; Sage 2007). Regulations are
thought to standardize production methods and product composition, while artisan production is
intrinsically variable. Regulations are thought to require costly investments and to favor
manufacturers that achieve economies of scale, while artisans produce at relatively small scales.
Regulatory oversight of artisan and other alternative approaches is unnecessary, the argument
goes, because “traditional” products and smaller, regional processing operations are inherently
safer than is larger-scale industrial mass production (Holloway and Kneafsey 2000; Paxson
2008; but see also Born and Purcell 2006). Some advocates also argue that regulatory oversight
is unnecessary when producers and consumers are familiar with each other, such as in direct
markets or other short supply chains (Sage 2003).
Debate on appropriate policy responses to the growing popularity of artisanship is
impeded by conflicting assumptions about the interests that regulations serve and do not serve.
Advocates of different positions variously invoke the interests of the public and of private
businesses. Normative views are implied in these positions: the public interest is to be protected;
regulations should not serve private business interests; yet regulations should do more to help
smaller business interests.
This chapter positions this debate within several economic theories of regulation and
offers an alternative perspective on the interests that regulations serve. It argues that these
theories have contributed to a narrative of “winners and losers” by juxtaposing the interests of
different actors to explain the motivations behind regulations and to frame regulatory impacts.
The chapter draws upon but departs from these economic views to argue that the interests served
allows for variability in products and processes (American Cheese Society 2011; Blundell 2002;
Bread Bakers Guild of America 2013; de Roest and Menghi 2000; Paxson 2011).
56

by regulations can, in fact, be complementary (Levine and Forrence 1990; van Zwanenberg et al.
2011). Different interests are not necessarily at odds with each other; a benefit to one actor does
not necessarily entail a cost to another. Approaching the policy problem introduced above
through this perspective, the chapter presents exploratory ethnographic research by considering
three primary questions: Whose interests does the regulatory process serve? In what ways?
According to whom?

37

The next section reviews scholarship on artisanship and on claims about the impacts of
regulation on smaller-scale agrifood production. The third section develops the conceptual
framework with reference to three economic theories of regulation that frame the popular and
scholarly concerns introduced above. The doctrine of the public interest explains regulation as a
mechanism of correcting market failure, such as when manufacturers produce poor quality food
products (Pigou 2002 [1952]). Other economic perspectives explain regulation as a product
supplied by the government in response to demand by competing private economic interests
(Posner 1974; Stigler 1971). Institutional economics problematizes the public-private dichotomy,
arguing that legal and economic processes are unavoidably related in an interdependent balance
of rights and responsibilities (Commons 1924; Samuels 1971). The section concludes by arguing
that interests are not only interdependent but complementary.
The fourth section presents the study’s methods. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews
were conducted with artisan bread, cheese, and jam producers and state food safety inspectors in
Michigan. Bread and cheese processing and food safety inspections were observed. The fifth

37

Economic development policy has addressed artisan and other smaller-scale food
entrepreneurship more directly than have food safety regulatory policy or economic theories of
regulation (e.g., Knudson et al. 2004).
57

section presents the findings. Artisans and inspectors describe the benefits that they experience in
this regulatory process as well as the negative aspects of the process. The final section offers
conclusions and implications for policy and research.

II.

ARTISAN FOOD PROCESSING
This section considers the concept of artisanship and the significance that it has attained

in alternative agrifood scholarship and practice, and it explores the roots of the putative tension
between artisanship and regulation. Artisan processing provides a particularly good case for
investigating the charge that regulations impose standards that favor large-scale food
manufacture over smaller-scale production. If regulations favor larger producers and reinforce
standardized production methods, they are likely to prove particularly vexing to processors who
emphasize manual techniques and allow for variability.
A.

Artisanship
Artisan processors produce at a small or medium scale, emphasize manual techniques and

close producer involvement, and accommodate variability in products and processes. To scholars
and practitioners critical of conventional food production, local and artisan foods represent
alternatives to foods that are more industrially produced. They constitute part of a trend toward
new models of agricultural and rural development that do not necessarily involve scale
enlargement, reliance on industrial technologies, or other aspects of what van der Ploeg et al.
refer to as “the modernization project” (2000, p. 395). This alternative trend represents a critique
of the industrial paradigm that has dominated agrifood production throughout much of the past
century (Buttel 2003; Cochrane 1993; Lobao and Meyer 2001). Critics characterize industrial
production as predicated on the (deleterious) control of nature and as controlled by centralized,

58

corporate decision makers acting on narrowly economic priorities (Kloppenburg et al. 2000). In
contrast, artisans are lauded as accommodating natural and seasonal variations and as acting
from more than simply economic motivations (Tregear 2005).
B.

Artisanship and Food Safety Regulation
Some supporters of alternative agrifood production charge that regulations protect large-

scale agrifood production and impose industrial techniques on small, handcraft, and other
alternative agrifood producers, and that regulatory oversight is unnecessary to assure the safety
of these products.
Contemporary critics of industrial-scale food production writing from a range of social
sciences argue that agrifood regulations protect large industry and further capital accumulation.
Some critics of regulation charge that “industrial food” both necessitates regulation and is
legitimated by it—that a self-reinforcing loop has developed in which food scares of industrial
origin necessitate regulation, which in turn is tailored to respond to these specific problems.
Artisan production, identified with pre-industrial food production, is seen neither to require the
same regulations nor to benefit from them (Busch 2004; Stuart 2008). Writing on the food scares
that have persisted despite a proliferation of new food safety measures, DeLind and Howard
claim that the “disproportionate influence [of the largest firms] results in injustices for smaller
capitalist firms, not just the public” (2008, p. 308; also Worosz et al. 2008). Some small
producers agree with this critique, holding that regulations increase entry costs by requiring
costly investments that are disproportionate to firm size (Buckley et al. 2011).
Some critics charge that regulations impose industrial techniques on producers (Sage
2007). Regulations set standards for production surfaces, production methods, product

59

composition, and equipment, among other factors.

38

Artisans who wish to use traditional

materials, such as wood and linen, may be required instead to use stainless steel and food-grade
plastic. Many artisans make use of locally available ingredients, and products are often identified
with the geographic area in which they are produced (Paxson 2012; Rector 1999). This
variability can make it difficult for producers to standardize production methods and product
composition.
Some advocates of artisans and other “alternative” (i.e., non-industrial) food producers
argue that regulations are not necessary to ensure the safety of their products. First, these
producers are assumed to operate with integrity and expertise that render government oversight
superfluous (Murdoch et al. 2000; Nygård and Storstad 1998). Small scale production and
handcrafting methods are associated with care on the part of the producer (Berry 1997; Wildgen
2011). Second, advocates argue that relationships of trust between producers and consumers
develop in direct market connections (Sage 2003). According to this logic, immediacy of contact
with customers compels artisans to serve customers’ interest. For some artisans and customers,
safety is constructed in local relationships rather than in codified rules (Enticott 2003; Ilbery and
Kneafsey 2000; Kupiec and Revell 1998). Finally, small processors argue that requirements do
not improve the quality or safety of their products (Buckley et al. 2011).
The assumption that regulatory oversight may not be necessary to ensure the safety of
these products subtends recent policy changes, which exempt from licensing requirements small
processors who sell directly to end consumers and who meet other criteria. The federal Food
Safety Modernization Act of 2011 exempts farmers and processors whose production falls within

38

21 CFR § 110.40(a)
60

sales and market distance limits. State home processing exemptions, such as the Michigan
Cottage Food Law of 2010, exempt some home processors.

39

The next section frames these issues around economic perspectives on regulation in the
US.

III.

REGULATIONS AND INTERESTS
This section positions the debate on policy responses to artisanship within economic

theories of regulation, and it concludes by offering an alternative way of thinking about the
interests that regulations serve. Economic perspectives on regulation in the US offer different
views on what motivates and justifies regulation, and they raise three interrelated questions:
Whose interests does the regulatory process serve? In what ways? According to whom? In what
follows, the notions of 1) public and 2) private interests are examined, respectively, as the
motivations behind regulations. The notions of “public” and “private” are problematized in 3)
institutional economics, which approaches divergent interests as interdependent. Finally, 4) the
argument is made that interests are not only interdependent but complementary. Evidence from
economics and historical scholarship that supports this claim is reviewed.
A.

Public Interest
Historical and Conceptual Background. The concept of the public interest originated as an

economic doctrine that explained government regulation as a means of correcting market failures
and inefficiencies. In serving the public interest, “governments…control the play of economic
forces in such wise as to promote the economic welfare, and through that, the total welfare, of
39

Home processor laws, a.k.a. cottage food laws or pickle bills, have been passed in over half of
US states.
61

their citizens as a whole” (Pigou 2002 [1952], p. 130). The doctrine views government
intervention as necessary to correct businesses’ tendency to serve their own interests rather than
those of others. In the matter of food safety, the idea of the public interest loosely refers to the
need to protect the general public from the health and safety risks created by unscrupulous or
incompetent food producers.
According to the doctrine of public interest, government regulation (compared with
private litigation) provides an efficient way of addressing problems in food manufacture and of
achieving a more equitable distribution of food that meets quality standards (Weisbrod et al.
1978). Before the contemporary food regulatory system was created, the responsibility of dealing
with unscrupulous producers, poor quality products, and other instances of market failure fell to
individuals (Young 1989). A person who attributed an illness or injury to a food product had
recourse to private litigation (Glaeser and Shleifer 2003). Under the contemporary system, the
government has right of entry to food manufacturing plants and conducts product testing, saving
individuals the cost of hiring attorneys or investigators on a case-by-case basis. It carries out,
with taxpayer money, what had earlier fallen to individuals to do. The government obtains
information for, and sets quality standards on behalf of, all prospective customers.
The public interest is invoked in a range of food safety discussion that includes the
popular media, consumer advocates, regulators, and scholars (e.g., Burros 1995; Center for
Science in the Public Interest 2012; Garcia Martinez et al. 2007). The tagline on the website of
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reads “protecting and promoting your health”
(FDA 2013, ital. orig.). Calls to defend the public interest have figured prominently throughout
the development of contemporary food safety regulation in the US. During the nineteenth
century, agrifood production, distribution, and marketing changed dramatically (Fortin 2009).
62

Mass production technologies and more complex distribution networks introduced new and
greater numbers of intermediaries between producers and end users. Along with benefits, these
changes also provided unscrupulous food producers with new means to mislead consumers, and
they created new problems of trust on the part of domestic and international buyers (Libecap
1992). Food traveled greater distances from producers to end users with the advent of
technologies such as refrigerated rail transportation (Freidberg 2008; Kujovich 1970). New
preservation technologies, such as canning processes and synthetic additives, made foods
available in forms previously unfamiliar to buyers and made the quality of products more
difficult for them to assess (Vileisis 2008; Wilson 2008).
By the last half of the nineteenth century, civic organizations and food manufacturers
were demanding production standards and improved information on food quality and
composition (Goodwin 1999; Young 1992). Much of this activism and lobbying focused on the
need to protect consumers. States responded by promulgating food laws, and popular support for
federal-level food safety legislation increased. Newspaper stories and legislative debates leading
up to the passage of federal-level food safety legislation in 1906 emphasized the failure of
manufacturers to supply food that customers trusted (House Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce 1906; New York Times staff 1905). Harvey Washington Wiley, author of the Pure
Food and Drugs Act, made a career of opposing chemical food additives as adulterants (Gaughan
and Hutt 2004). He argued, “The sole objects of food adulteration are to sell an inferior article at
the price of a superior one and to preserve a good article, so that it can be sold after preservation
at the same price or at a higher price than it would bring in its natural fresh state, and to secure
this object reprehensible methods are employed” (Wiley 1899, p. 153).

63

Problematizing the Notion of the Public Interest. The idea itself of the public interest may
appear at first to be straightforward, signifying what is good for people in general. Who, after all,
can argue with the idea of protecting the public? Parsing the concept, however, proves
troublesome (Coase 1960; Posner 1974). First, the idea of “the public” is nebulous. Little
scholarship that uses the term “public interest” defines “public,” either as a qualifier or as an
entity (McCraw 1975). The term “public” is often defined in juxtaposition to “private,” a
dichotomy that stems from Aristotle (1889, 1905) and continues to inform scholarly and popular
views of regulation (e.g., Nestle 2010; Pollan 2009). For example, while Hirschman’s discussion
of the private-public dichotomy considers at length the term “private,” his treatment of the term
“public” is vague, if confident. He asserts that the term “offers little difficulty…[it refers] to
action in the political realm, to involvement of the citizen in civic or community affairs” (2002
[1982], p. 6). This definition draws a sharp but simplistic distinction between what one does in
business or the home, i.e., privately, and the “rest” of one’s activities. It also draws a simplistic
distinction between what people do as individuals and what they do collectively. Yet to the
extent that “public” and “private” interests may be distinguished from each other (and as argued
below they cannot be), they are simultaneously and iteratively determined (Levine and Forrence
1990).

40

40

Another economic concept, that of public goods, may be confused with the idea of the public
interest. A key difference between public goods and the public interest is that “public” refers to
different entities in the two. A public good is public because it is provided by a public institution.
A public interest pertains to the general public.
Two characteristics define a public good: it is available to everyone when it is available to
anyone, and one person’s use of the good does not diminish its availability to another person.
That is, public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Most highways, for example, are
public goods. Some economists have argued that such goods must be provided by public
means—i.e., by the government—rather than by private business, because these two
characteristics make it difficult for a private business to charge for and profit from the use of the
64

Second, the idea of “interest” is also nebulous. In the sense used in discussions of the
public interest, an “interest” implicitly represents what benefits an individual or a group (e.g.,
Hirschman 2002 [1982]). Yet, in what way, according to whom, and over what period of time
(Pleasence and Maclean 1998)? Individually or collectively? Asked to define their own interests,
what people articulate may differ from what is evident in their conduct. What people articulate
may not ultimately benefit them. What people choose for themselves may not reflect their
broader policy preferences (Olson 1968; Sunding 2003).
Where used in this chapter, the term public interest denotes the interest of people to avoid
illness or injury from consuming food that they have purchased.

41

The public, here, comprises

buyers and end users of purchased food. Most food in the US is obtained on the market rather
than produced by people for their own consumption. Avoiding illness and injury is assumed to be
an interest that people share in common, hence a public interest. By promulgating food safety
regulations, the government acts on “the public” through the market. Therefore food safety
regulations serve the parties and interests that the market serves, not the entire population or all
of its interests, imagined or actualized.
B.

Private Interests
Another perspective, the theory of economic regulation, explains regulation as an

outcome of demand for and supply of regulation (Posner 1974; Stigler 1971). Regulation
redistributes income among private interests—industry organizations, individuals, regulators
(Bardach and Kagan 1982), and others. Interest groups form in order to influence regulations to
good (Samuelson 1954, 1958). See Unnevehr (2007) for a discussion of food safety as a “global
public good” in a globalizing food system.
41
The notions of sickness and health can themselves be problematized, as can the unit at which
sickness and health are analyzed. See, e.g., Busch (2004); Enticott (2003); Thompson (2007).
65

their own advantage, such as by increasing barriers to entry, influencing prices, or affecting the
market in other ways. The groups demand regulations that benefit them, and in exchange they
support the politicians who honor their demands. Larger and more politically influential business
interests have the resources to shape regulations to increase their advantage over smaller or less
influential businesses and other competitors. Individual consumers and others not associated with
an industry also have private economic interests. But they also tend to have less incentive and
means to organize than does industry, and less to offer politicians in exchange for regulatory
benefits.
A relative of this view, capture theory, emphasizes the political dimension of the
relationship between government and private enterprise. Proponents of the idea suggest that
regulatory agencies and their public agendas are in fact controlled by industry’s interests (e.g.,
Casey 1997). In two histories of Progressive Era regulation in the US, Kolko (1963, 1965) argues
that Theodore Roosevelt promoted these ostensibly publicly minded reforms primarily in order
to consolidate the power of corporations. Movement of workers between government regulatory
agencies and industry in a “revolving door” provides continuing evidence for some degree of
industry influence over regulators (Meghani and Kuzma 2011).
The view of regulation as an outcome of competing private interests is consonant with
that of the advocates, cited above, who charge that regulations serve the interests of large-scale
processors by imposing unattainable costs and burdens on small-scale processors. There is
empirical evidence that economic power has motivated the development of food safety
regulation in the US, to the benefit of large agrifood producers. Historian Harvey Levenstein
(1988) argues that the large processors who supported the 1906 legislation recognized that the
new regulatory standards would enable them to compete more successfully with small and
66

under-resourced firms. Legal scholars and economists writing on Wiley, author of the 1906 Pure
Food and Drugs Act, describe the close relationships that Wiley formed with influential food and
beverage producers in order to build support for federal legislation (Gaughan and Hutt 2004;
High and Coppin 1988).
Writing from a different conceptual perspective, science and technology scholars also
point to the close relationship between the state and influential business interests. Busch (2004)
argues that modern food law has served to legitimate industrial production since its initial
passage in 1906. The scientific experts who advise on contemporary regulations are responsive
to powerful political and economic interests, and their advice is unavoidably intertwined in
politics (Busch 2002; Millstone 2007). Regulatory science reinforces the administrative need of
government and large-scale producers for standardization and control, and it may fail to take the
diversity of small producer situations into account (Scott 1998; Stuart 2008; Wynne 1996).
C.

Institutional Economics and the Interdependence of Interests
Institutional economics takes a yet different view of the relationship between government

and economic entities. It foregrounds the ineluctable role of institutions—such as government
regulations, professional norms, and social traditions—in setting the rules that shape the market.
“Law is an instrument for the attainment of economic objectives, and the economy is an object
of legal control” (Samuels 1972a, comma and ital. mine). This is not a cynical lament on
collusion between government and private enterprise, and it aims not to be a normative statement
(Samuels 1972b). It is an observation that the economy does not function without a “structured
set of [working] rules and sanctions” (Bromley 1989, p. 44; also Mercuro and Medema 2006).
Rules and sanctions are collectively defined and enforced, whether formally or informally.

67

That is, institutional economics conceives of legal and economic interests as dynamically
interrelated. It introduces the idea that the interests of different economic actors are reciprocal
and interdependent. In a seminal work in this field, Commons defines an institution as
“collective action in restraint, liberation, and expansion of individual action” (1934, p. 73).
Rights and responsibilities are inevitable in economic life, and they are directly correlative. One
person’s liberty correlates with another’s restraint; one person’s right correlates with another’s
responsibility. “Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows” (quoted in Berlin 1969, p. 124).
Institutions, such as regulations, determine how these rights and responsibilities are distributed
(Schmid 1987, 1999).

42

There is no freedom “from” rules; there is only the question of how the

rules distribute rights and responsibilities.
An institutionalist perspective offers two main contributions to the current study. First, it
strives to provide a more specific and positive (as opposed to normative) approach to thinking
about interests. As seen above, debate concerning artisan food processing and food safety
regulation paints “interests” with a broad and normative brush. Interests that figure in this debate
include those of the public (a group whose health, it is assumed, is to be protected), small
agrifood producers (a minority group that is to be encouraged), and large agrifood producers (a
group whose power is to be curbed). The approach adopted in this chapter strives to suspend
assumptions about whose interests ought to be served. Instead, it inquires into the ways in which
actors indicate that their interests are or are not served. Second, an institutional perspective
resists categorizing interests as public or private. As seen in the previous two sections,
fundamental conceptual differences complicate any investigation concerning the public interest
42

For example, if a new law restricts a factory’s emissions in response to neighboring residents’
complaints about air quality, it is not imposing a new regulatory burden. It is shifting the burden
away from the residents and to the factory.
68

and private economic interests. Instead, institutional economists problematize the distinction
between public and private. If the law both structures and serves private power (Samuels 1971),
then identifying a set of interests as either public or private is presumptive and misleading. It
blinkers our view of the matter under investigation (Schmid 1987).
D.

Complementary Interests
This chapter follows the institutionalists in approaching interests as interdependent. Yet it

departs from the institutionalists in approaching interests as complementary. In asserting
complementarity, the chapter argues that there may not always be a direct correlative relationship
between rights and responsibilities, or benefits and burdens.

43

One party’s right may not

correlate directly with another’s responsibility. To assert that freedom for the pike is death for
the minnows (see above) is to assume a very small pool of economic actors with an exceedingly
narrow and fixed set of interests. In fact, economic actors are motivated by a mix of interests
(Levine and Forrence 1990). Interests are not mutually exclusive; they may overlap, and
sometimes they may even be synergistic. In a twist on the idea of regulatory capture discussed
above, van Zwanenberg et al. observe that “everyone implicated in a regulatory system is
partially captured by everyone else in that system” (2011, p. 20; see also Carpenter 2004;
Nielsen and Parker 2012).
There is historical and contemporary evidence of overlap and synergy among the interests
affected by regulation. The interests of businesses and customers, and arguably those of
regulatory agencies, are served in multiple ways. Reviewing the work of regulatory commissions
throughout US history, McCraw concludes, “Regulation is best understood as an institution
43

“Interdependence does not necessarily equate with perfect balance or perfect harmony.”
Rev. David A. Robins, Aug. 17, 2013
69

capable of serving diverse, even contradictory ends, some economic, some political, some
cultural” (1975, p. 180). Following the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906, USDA
inspectors found that an educational approach was at least as effective in achieving compliance
among food manufacturers as was a strict enforcement approach (Law 2006; Young 1992). The
technical assistance that manufacturers received from these early inspectors suggests a
complicated relationship of interdependence that cannot easily be represented in polar correlates.
Contemporary economic cost-benefit analysis of the implementation and outcomes of food law
indicate that regulatory measures may simultaneously achieve different benefits for different
stakeholders (Unnevehr and Jensen 1999; see also Gardner 2003). Business owners in the UK
appreciate the technical information provided by public health regulators (Elgood et al. 2004;
Yapp and Fairman 2006). The “patience and understanding” (Hutter 1989, p. 155) that regulators
exercise with firms may also benefit consumers, communities, and other public stakeholders
affected by a firm’s activities.

IV.

METHODS
There is little empirical study to inform food safety policy affecting artisans. Few studies

have focused on artisan processing in contemporary, regulated, and industrialized contexts.

44

Research on artisanship has focused mostly on historical and developing country contexts. There
are also gaps in research on the food safety regulation of artisan processing. Research in the US
has been directed toward the barriers that small food business owners report (Buckley et al.
2011; Worosz et al. 2008) and has not focused equally on benefits that producers experience.

44

For exceptions, see Paxson (2008, 2010, 2011, 2012); Terrio (1998, 2000).
70

Importantly, food safety inspections of these facilities have not been observed, and regulators’
experiences of small food businesses and inspections have not been researched.
To investigate the food safety regulation of artisan processing, this study focused on food
safety inspections rather than on written laws. Law is “made” during the enforcement of
regulations just as it is in more formal policymaking processes (Lipsky 2010 [1980]). Indeed,
“the actual behavior of officials [is] the only legal reality that we really know” (Commons 1924,
p. 112). Studies of regulatory enforcement suggest that outcomes are the product of the
discretion and interpretive flexibility that inspectors exercise, interactions between inspectors
and regulated parties, and the experiences that each brings to inspection situations (Arce 1989;
Gormley 1998; Lipsky 2010 [1980]; May and Wood 2003; van Zwanenberg et al. 2011). Yet
enforcement of food safety regulations, such as during inspections, has received little attention in
the study of US food law (Law 2006).

45

When policy debate focuses only on substantive law (i.e., legislation and administrative
regulations), it risks reproducing a common and yet idealized view of regulations that depicts a
linear, unidirectional trajectory from legislation to enforcement. It assumes that legislative and
regulatory mandates translate straightforwardly into regulatory outcomes. Yet in practice,
inspections introduce issues beyond those defined in codified law. First, many regulatory
requirements are broad and require interpretation by food safety inspectors, who take into
account contextual details of specific facilities (Grattet and Jenness 2005; Yapp and Fairman
2006). Second, interactions between food safety regulators and producers may extend beyond
strictly technical questions of compliance. Some agencies adopt a consulting approach that

45

A Google Scholar search for key terms yielded no US studies.
71

emphasizes cooperation and education (Braithwaite et al. 1987; Macauley 1993; May and Wood
2003; Scholz and Gray 1997). Writing on the sociology of regulation, Hutter (1989) describes an
“accommodative” approach in which inspectors explain to regulated parties the reasons for
requirements and discuss possible means for attaining them. “Patience and understanding
underpin the whole strategy, which is regarded as an open-ended and long-term venture” (Hutter
1989, p. 155). Third, regulators work to accommodate individual producers’ notions of right and
wrong as they enforce regulations (Lowe and Ward 1997). Producers’ decisions about whether
and how to comply with regulations are influenced by their interaction with enforcers (Fairman
and Yapp 2005; Henson and Heasman 1998).
A.

The Case
Popular media stories and casual observation indicate that there is burgeoning interest in

artisan food processing in Michigan. Small-scale processing activity has increased in recent
years, paralleling rising interest in regionally produced food and economic necessity stemming
from the decline of the state’s leading industry, auto manufacturing (Cantrell 2010).
Artisan processing figures prominently in this trend. Data on the number of artisan
processors in Michigan are not available. However, of the 15 craft bakeries identified during this
study, 10 indicated that they have opened within the past 15 years (see also Rector 1999). The
Michigan Cheese Makers Cooperative, a group of 11 artisan and farmstead

46

cheesemakers, was

formed in 2010 (MSU ANR Communications 2010).

46

Farmstead cheese is made on a farm using milk produced on that farm. Farmstead cheese is
often (though not always) handcrafted in small batches.
72

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) is the state
agency charged with assuring food safety. MDARD’s Food and Dairy Division handles food
safety inspections. Inspectors work out of their homes and out of vehicles that the state provides.
In 2012, there were 47 Food inspectors responsible for approximately 2,000 food processing
operations and 18 Dairy inspectors responsible for approximately 3,500 dairy farms and
processing operations.
B.

47

Participant Selection
Artisan participants in this study were selected to represent cheese, bread, and jam

production, three common types of small scale processing in Michigan. This selection of
products captured a small diversity of producers and inspectors and represented different
geographic parts of Michigan. The products are inspected by the two types of inspectors working
in MDARD’s Food and Dairy Division: bakers and jam makers are inspected by Food
inspectors, and cheesemakers are inspected by Dairy inspectors. Food and Dairy inspectors are
assigned to geographic areas rather than to specific product types.
Artisans were identified through 1) internet searches for producers who met the study’s
working definition of artisanship, emphasizing handcrafted products, engaging in each step of
the production process, and producing at a small or medium scale; 2) “snowball sampling”—that
is, processors contacted early in the project recommended other processors (Corbin and Strauss
2008); and 3) the assistance of agrifood professionals and resource providers. A Project Advisory
Committee was created to provide guidance on this research, and Committee members facilitated

47

Numbers provided by MDARD.
73

contact with research participants.

48

Production approaches were further discussed during

interviews in order to confirm that participants met broadly artisan criteria. Artisan participants
included 10 bread bakers, 11 cheesemakers, and 4 jam processors, as well as managers of 2
incubator kitchens where jam and other products are processed (see Table 3, page 75). Artisans
had been licensed for between 1 and 30 years.
MDARD Food and Dairy supervisors identified inspectors whose areas included artisan
facilities. Inspectors’ participation was voluntary.

49

Inspector participants included 13 Food

inspectors and 6 Dairy inspectors. Inspectors had between 3 and 26 years’ experience.
Interviews involved participants as individuals, not artisans and their inspectors in pairs.
The artisan clients of some inspectors did not participate, and the inspectors of some artisans did
not participate. In some instances, both an artisan and his or her inspector participated. Selection
was determined in part by artisans’ and inspectors’ availability during periods of the fieldwork
and their willingness to participate. Participants represented a broad geographic distribution of
artisans and inspectors in the state.
C.

Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection consisted of interviews and field observations.

48

The Project Advisory Committee consisted of Kevin Besey, Director, MDARD Food and
Dairy Division; Siobhan Kent, Department Analyst, MDARD Food Safety Planning and
Response; Natasha Lantz, Community Liaison, Marquette Food Co-op, Marquette, Mich.; Sue
Spagnuolo, Cheesemaker, Greenbush Farms, St. Johns, Mich.; and Ron Steiner, Director, The
Starting Block Incubator Kitchen, Hart, Mich.
49
Selection bias and my consequently cooperative relationships with participants are discussed
in Chapter 1 (page 19). More detail on the methods outlined here appears in the Appendices to
Chapter 1 (starting on page 35).
74

Table 3. Participation in interviews and field observations
Artisans
Bread
Cheese
Jam
Inspectors
Food
Dairy

n = 10
n = 11
n=6
n = 13
n=6

n = 27

n = 19

Interviews
n = 24
n=8
n = 10
n=6
n=9
n=6
n=3

Field observations
n = 11
n=5
n=6
n=6
n=6

n = 12

Artisans and inspectors participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews that lasted
between 30 and 90 minutes and averaged 65 minutes. Discussion focused on the experiences of
established artisan processors in dealing with inspectors, and of inspectors in dealing with
artisans; factors that made the regulatory process succeed for both parties; training that
participants felt was needed for themselves or others; and regulations that artisans wanted to see
changed.

50

Most interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. When interviews were not

recorded, notes were taken manually.
Issues that emerged during interviews were further investigated during field observations.
Field observations were conducted at facilities in which 1) an inspection was scheduled within
the period of the study,

51

and 2) both the artisan and his or her inspector were willing to

participate in the study. First, I observed artisan observations for between 2 and 4 hours in order
to become familiar with the actors and activities in each artisan’s production. I conversed with
artisans about their operations and their approaches to artisanship. Second, I returned to these
facilities with food safety inspectors in order to observe the facilities’ inspections. Inspections
lasted between 1 and 3 hours. One-on-one conversations with artisans and inspectors before,
50
51

See interview instruments in Chapter 1, Appendices B and C.

MDARD provided me with lists of facilities, facility contact information, and inspection due
dates.
75

during, and/or after observations covered issues similar to those covered in interviews.
Observations focused on concerns that arose during inspections, the practices involved, and
interpersonal interactions between artisans and inspectors. During observations, all notes were
taken by hand.
Interview transcripts and notes were coded for emerging concepts (Corbin and Strauss
2008) using NVivo, a qualitative data analysis program. Two passes were made through each
transcript or set of notes to capture emergent themes. Notes from observations were typed and
organized in Microsoft Word files. Themes and preliminary findings were identified.

V.

52

FINDINGS: ARTISAN AND INSPECTOR VIEWS ON INTERESTS SERVED BY REGULATIONS
Artisans and inspectors identified ways in which the regulatory process did and did not

serve their interests and the interests of others. Interests are operationalized here as benefits,
economic or otherwise, to these actors. The section identifies the benefits and the negative
aspects that artisans and inspectors identified with the regulation of artisan facilities.
A.

Benefits

1.

To Artisans
Many artisans indicated that they receive assistance and support from their inspectors,

and they described these benefits in detail. These artisans felt that their inspectors, through
enforcing food safety regulations, helped them improve their businesses. Regulations and
inspectors serve artisan interests by 1) providing technical assistance, 2) supporting and

52

More detail is in Chapter 1, Appendix A, page 35).
76

reinforcing the directives that artisans give their processing staff, and 3) sharing ideas used by
other artisans.
Technical Assistance. Many of the artisans participating in the study looked to inspectors
for technical assistance, quality assurance, and other matters not directly related to food safety.
These producers’ attention was divided among the many details that running a food business
involves, and they appreciated inspectors’ specific focus on food safety issues:
He’s a guy that’s just coming here to make sure that I’m not overlooking
something that could potentially harm somebody.
Cheesemaker
They saw inspectors as specialists who drew their attention to possible hazards that they
may have otherwise missed, such as unprotected light bulbs and allergen cross-contamination.
For example, a baker described a visit during which an inspector required him to replace the
bakery’s ceiling light bulbs with shatter resistant bulbs within a certain period of time. He
reluctantly complied, noting the considerable cost of the bulbs. Yet:
I think it was three months later that I hit a light bulb [with a long handle],
and it didn’t shatter in a million pieces and go into all our dough and all
our product. It stayed contained.
Baker
Inspectors, too, indicated that the guidance they provided on food safety often related to
broader operational matters, such as identifying methods for keeping older equipment running
properly:

77

And [crappy equipment] is one of the things that…really frustrates us. I
think it frustrates the artisanal producers, too, because they would love to
make more money and buy new equipment and comply…Sometimes what
we’ll do is say, “You have got this old run-down piece of equipment,” and
we will try to find processes or methodologies for them…so they can
continue to use that until they can afford to buy something better.
Food inspector
Even some artisans who did not agree with the government’s role in assuring food safety
nevertheless liked their inspectors as people and appreciated their help, describing in detail the
ways in which inspectors had improved their operations.
Support in Enforcing Their Own Standards. Artisans indicated that it can be difficult to
enforce standards of hygiene and sanitation among their staff. As one cheesemaker put it, “I can
play good cop and let [the inspector] be bad cop…And it does make it easier to manage [the
operation].” At one bakery, an inspector recorded violations in part to draw these problems to the
baker’s landlord’s attention, thus assisting the baker.
Sharing of Ideas. As inspectors became more familiar with artisan facilities, they
broadened their understanding of the equipment and techniques that different artisans used.
Many of the artisans participating in this study conversed at length with inspectors during visits.
Inspectors sometimes relayed to them, in general terms, experiences that other producers had
with specific processes or types of equipment.
2.

To Inspectors
Pride in Seeing Businesses Succeed. Inspectors were invested in the success of the facilities

they inspected. Many, though not all of them, enjoyed providing technical assistance to artisan
businesses. Conversations between inspectors and artisans often veered from food safety to many
other operational matters.

78

[Our inspector] takes pride in seeing us succeed. If he sees us in a news
story, or if he walks in a store and he sees our cheese, he feels like he’s
part of that…[J]ust like if we’re buying hay from somebody, or the retail
store, all the way along the chain, they’re part of the process. And the
inspector, he feels like he’s part of the process.
Farmstead cheesemaker
Relationships with Small and Medium Producers. Inspectors reported benefitting from their
interactions with the artisans whose facilities they inspected. Providing technical assistance to
smaller plants can be time-consuming. However, asked what made these plant inspections
worthwhile, one inspector echoed the views of others when he replied, “The relationships.”
MDARD directs inspectors to approach their work as educators and trainers.

53

Asked

what they enjoyed about their roles, inspectors emphasized the value and reward of assisting
food manufacturers:
What I like about the job is you get to work with people and you get to
help them solve their problems.
Food inspector
Learning about a Variety of Production Styles. Inspectors expressed curiosity about and
appreciation for the approaches used by artisan processors, although they did not always agree
with these approaches. Several Dairy inspectors had taken Michigan State University’s artisan
cheesemaking short course in order to learn more about techniques used by new cheesemakers in
their areas. The following inspector spoke appreciatively of the ingenuity with which an Amish
farmer had developed a cheese plant that met regulatory requirements without electricity. He
explained:

53

Four of the inspectors indicated that they had teaching degrees or taught school before
becoming inspectors.
79

I like going to new areas and just seeing the farms, seeing how they
operate, all the farmers’ thoughts on why they’re doing it this way, why
they’re doing it that way.
Dairy inspector
3.

To Food Consumers
Artisans and inspectors generally agreed on the importance of public health, and both saw

themselves as accountable to food consumers. Many artisans took issue with specific legal
definitions of food safety, such as whether linen threads represented a safety risk and whether
flour beetles under a stove were likely to contaminate bread. Yet they agreed with inspectors
about the overriding importance of preventing foodborne illness.
We have two clients in this world: the public, and the [food business]
entity. And they’re not mutually exclusive.
Food inspector
Most of the artisans saw inspectors as fulfilling a necessary duty in protecting the public.
In fact, two of the producers wished that their own inspectors were stricter. A baker recounted
surprise at how cursory he felt his own opening inspection was:
I would have preferred a little more rigorous conversation [with the
inspector]…It would have given me confidence that all the other
businesses are also being checked. I mean, I guess my thought was, “If
that’s the level of inspection I got, okay, what is the business down the
street doing? Where the owner doesn’t care about product contamination
or anything like that?”
Baker
Asked whom he saw himself serving, a food inspector gestured around to the other
patrons of the coffee shop in which his interview took place:
These people…You know, I got a letter that I carried around in my car for
years. [A lady] was complaining about a store where they had big
problems with the refrigeration. To me, customer complaints are one of
the most important things that we do, because those people are our eyes
80

and ears in the stores when we’re not able to be there. And she said,
“Please, can you do something about this. We don’t have any place else to
go.” I thought to myself, “That’s the lady that I work for. She pays my
wages.”
Food inspector
B.

Negative Aspects

1.

For Artisans
Artisans described ways in which they felt regulations countered their interests. They

referred to specific rules and—less so—to their experiences with inspectors. They indicated
ways in which the regulatory process 1) impeded artisan techniques, 2) imposed costs that they
considered unreasonable, and 3) required measures that they considered unnecessary. Some
burdens reflected a combination of these.
Impeding Artisan Techniques. When asked whether they would change any regulatory
requirements if they could, most artisans in this study indicated that requirements had not
prevented them from doing what they wanted to. However, some artisans did report conflicts
between their approaches to production and those required by inspectors. For example, many
artisan bakers proof dough in baskets made of wicker and lined with linen in order to achieve a
specific quality of bread. Federal regulations require that food contact surfaces be “adequately
cleanable” and “maintained to protect food from being contaminated by any source.”

54

Some

inspectors interpret this to prohibit the use of these proofing baskets, requiring instead baskets
made of a more impermeable material such as plastic. Plastic interacts differently with dough
and affects the dough’s moisture, requiring these bakers to change their baking processes and
produce what they considered to be a lesser quality bread.

54

21 CFR § 110.40(a)
81

Imposing Unreasonable Costs. Cheesemakers raised more concerns about the costs involved
in meeting regulations than did bakers or jam producers. Sanitation rules are more detailed for
dairy processing than they are for other types of food manufacture and tend to allow for less
interpretation by inspectors. Many cheesemakers cited the antibiotic testing of milk as a costly
and troublesome requirement. “Other than buying my milk, [testing] is probably the most
expensive element to my cheesemaking,” said one. Although producers agreed that antibiotics
are to be avoided in cheesemaking, many questioned the rule’s effectiveness and the costs
involved.
Requiring Unnecessary Measures. Artisans described episodes in which inspectors initially
interpreted regulations as requiring large-scale equipment. In some of these cases, inspectors
subsequently determined that smaller or less expensive alternatives achieved regulatory
objectives:
One of the biggest problems with cheesemakers, especially starting out, is
they invest way too much in the beginning. Especially if you're talking to
your inspectors. I remember the first conversation I had with him, he said,
“It will cost you at least a quarter million to start up.” And in the end it
was $30,000. So if we had listened to our inspector the whole way…it
could be that it would have cost well over a couple hundred thousand
dollars. But…we said, “Can we do this instead?”
Farmstead cheesemaker
Many inspectors had more experience inspecting large-scale facilities than smaller
facilities. They were familiar with the equipment and facilities that larger producers use, and
some expected to see the same equipment and techniques at smaller facilities.
2.

For Inspectors
Investment of Time. Many artisan processors looked to inspectors for quality assurance,

technical assistance, and business advice not directly related to food safety regulations. In
82

contrast to operators of large facilities, they were unlikely to have staff specializing in quality
control, procurement, or other matters. The inspections that were observed during this research
involved often lengthy conversations about many issues. In some cases, several hours were spent
at facilities measuring less than 1,000 square feet. Many (though not all) inspectors enjoyed this
aspect of their jobs and were interested in learning about artisan approaches. Yet with MDARD
budget decreases, inspectors also found it difficult to invest this much time addressing broad
food business matters.
Emotional Investment in Businesses That Ultimately Close. Inspectors did not use terms such
as “emotional,” and their relationships with artisans and other agrifood producers were defined
professionally as those of regulators and regulatees. Still, inspectors spoke of the disappointment
of helping food entrepreneurs launch businesses, only to see them close after a short time for
lack of markets or other reasons. It appeared that their work involved a degree of emotional
investment in client enterprises.
C.

The Interpersonal Dynamics of Regulatory Practice
The interpersonal dynamics between artisans and inspectors affected the ways in which

interests were or were not served during regulatory processes. The study’s methodological focus
on inspections revealed a more complex interplay of interests than emerges from a focus on
formal requirements or rulemaking. As artisans and inspectors interacted, they learned about
each other’s interests, ways of working, and sometimes their personal lives. The relationships
that they developed over time shaped their views of their own interests and the ways in which
these interests were served. Participants spoke of the benefits of positive relationships and the
negative aspects of problematic relationships.

83

1.

Benefits
Collegial, trusting relationships made it easier for artisans and inspectors to benefit from

the regulatory process. When asked whether they recommended that any requirements be
changed in order to accommodate their approaches to production, most artisans indicated that
specific requirements had not impeded them from doing what they wanted to do. As one baker
responded, “It’s just a conversation.” That is, it was merely a matter of discussing his aims and
approach with his inspector and, together, determining how to achieve them while meeting
requirements.
Interactions provided a means of resolving differences. When one couple opened the first
brick oven bakery in their inspector’s area and presented their plans to her, she was concerned
that food contact surfaces be cleanable and protect food from contamination. She asked that they
take bread to farmers’ markets in plastic bags. However:
We were not interested in putting [the bread] in plastic…I remember
talking about that the most. After her hearing about what we wanted to do,
and expressing what the concerns are from the safety regulation
standpoint, [I remember] her essentially saying, “Let me tell you how you
can do this.” And I just remember…breathing a sigh of relief, like “Oh my
gosh, she’s willing to work with us and help us figure out how to make
this happen.”…I appreciate the fact that she has taken the attitude of an
advocate for small business owners rather than the gate keeper to entry for
those who want to participate in Michigan's economy.
Baker
Many inspectors indicated that they made efforts to accommodate producers whose
intentions and capabilities they had come to trust. Inspectors also spoke of their own
responsibility in forming constructive relationships. Like the dairy inspector described above,
others also made an effort to understand artisan processes and to engage with them as people and
not merely as law enforcers.

84

Attending to the interpersonal dynamic of inspections helped serve inspector’s own
interests. These inspectors described effective inspection practices as follows:
If you know the nature of his process, you understand things he
does…[You have to] walk in their shoes. You make yourself credible, and
they’ll do anything you ask.
Food inspector
You’ve got to make yourself human for them. Otherwise they won’t
comply.
Food inspector
2.

Negative Aspects
Processors who indicated frustration with inspectors described inspectors’ “need to be in

control and not taking the time to address a problem.” A baker described asking an inspector to
explain the justification for specific requirements, so that he could explain them to staff. Yet
answers were not forthcoming:
Every question about “why” is viewed as a challenge and confrontation
and actually not answered.
Baker
Inspectors who indicated frustration with processors described people who believed they
had nothing more to learn about their businesses. Processors agreed with this assessment and
cautioned other processors to be open to learning from inspectors.
You can tell, when you talk to some [business owners], they put up a wall
right there: “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been doing
this for 18 years, 22 years. I think I know my business.”
Food inspector

85

VI.

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A.

Conclusions
This chapter began with the questions: Whose interests does the regulatory process serve?

In what ways? According to whom? The study demonstrates that multiple interests are served in
different ways, according to both artisans and inspectors. These findings offer little traction to
the narrative of winners and losers, described above, that characterizes policy discussion of the
regulation of small food businesses.
Artisans and inspectors depicted a dynamic of complementarity—in fact synergy—rather
than mutual exclusion among interests. They engaged in collaborative discussions to identify
production strategies that met artisan priorities as well as regulatory requirements. When an
inspector helped a small processor identify a way to keep an older piece of equipment
functioning satisfactorily, she helped the processor address an operational and financial
challenge, reduced the likelihood that the processor’s customers would find broken bits of
machinery in his products, and indulged her own interest in processors’ machinery and
production approaches.
It is difficult to separate “public” and “private” interests in these remarks. Individual
actors have many different interests—actors such as the baker who was concerned about a lax
inspection at his own facility because of what it might portend for inspections at the food
businesses where he shopped. Inspectors saw their clients not just as facilities to be regulated but
as part of the communities in which they lived; they saw themselves as serving the public
through serving food businesses. Artisans served their own interests through serving the public.

86

Popular and scholarly accounts of business influences on regulation focus on large
businesses. Powerful connections are made through lobbying and the “revolving door”
movement of regulators to industry and back. True, artisans may enjoy little influence in this
conventional political sense. Yet the influence that private businesses wield in the regulatory
process can take different forms. This study demonstrates that the enforcement of regulations
through inspections generates connections between regulators and smaller business interests.
B.

Implications and Recommendations for Research and Policy

1.

Research Implications
This study provides a point of departure for further qualitative and quantitative

investigation. This section identifies sources of bias in the study that may be addressed in further
work, and it suggests further avenues of inquiry.
Bias. At least three potential sources of bias are evident in the study’s method. Research
that builds on this study should develop some indication (if not measure) of these biases and
identify ways of reducing them. First, inspectors participated in this study voluntarily,
introducing selection bias. The implications of the bias for the study are not clear. It might have
been expected that inspectors with poorer relationships with artisan processors would be less
inclined to participate. Yet some inspectors with excellent reputations among artisans declined to
participate. Further research may be broadened to include a wider, more systematic, and less
voluntary selection of inspectors.
Second, and relatedly, the criteria according to which artisans were selected may be more
clearly specified and more strictly applied in further research.

87

Third, it is almost certain that both artisans and inspectors withheld sensitive information
during interviews and that the presence of a researcher during field observations affected
interactions. Just how this affected the data is difficult to assess; some artisans unreservedly
relayed complaints about specific inspectors and inspection practices. Inspectors criticized some
practices of artisans and other small food businesses, though not by name or in an identifiable
way.
As argued in Chapter 1 (page 19), selection bias and my consequent cooperative
relationships with participants permitted me a degree of access to food safety inspections that
strengthened this exploratory study. However, additional analysis (should these data be analyzed
further) may reveal implications of this bias and of my interactions with participants. Approaches
would include triangulation of the data obtained through the different methods used in the
study—interviews, observations, and focus groups—and cross-case comparisons (Yin 2014).
Further Research. Several questions emerge from this study. First, how do food safety
agencies differ in culture and enforcement style? The application of this study’s findings may be
limited by the culture of an agency and the approach that it encourages among its inspectors.
Some of the artisan participants in this study indicated that MDARD food safety inspectors take
a more constructive approach to their work than do inspectors from other agencies.
Second, how do inspector age and years of experience impact inspector styles? Artisans
and inspectors both spoke of the difference that age and experience make in an inspector.
Younger inspectors were generally characterized as stricter, more “by the book,” and harder to
work with. A middle-aged inspector stated firmly that if he had started directly out of college, he
“absolutely would have failed at this job” because he saw the world in black and white.

88

Inspectors who had children or who had taught K–12 spoke of the crucial difference those
experiences had made in the greater flexibility and understanding that they brought to
inspections.
Third, is the rapport between an inspector and small or medium producer a predictor of
regulatory compliance? This study suggests that this rapport makes at least as a great a difference
for compliance as does the producer’s knowledge of regulatory requirements. A producer who is
unfamiliar with regulations will learn about them if he or she has open, constructive
communication with an inspector. But producers who have poor relationships with inspectors
may well have problems regardless of how well they know regulations.
Fourth, what is the economic impact of inspection practices and of the inspectorprocessor relationship? This study suggests that positive inspector-processor relationships help
improve artisan operations and may increase business viability. Artisans spoke of specific
facility and operations improvements that inspectors had identified. A closer investigation may
quantify these benefits.
2.

Policy Recommendations
Interpersonal interaction between artisans and inspectors have the potential to improve

the regulatory process for artisans and other small to medium processors. The positive
experiences that artisans reported appeared to stem from the training and assistance approach
that MDARD encourages its inspectors to take, coupled with the discretionary flexibility that it
allows its inspectors.

89

The proposed Preventive Controls Rule of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act
(FSMA) would extend requirements for audit systems to more types of processing.

55

FSMA

would require virtually all processing facilities to comply with Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based
Preventive Controls (HARPC) requirements. HARPC involves preparing and implementing a
food safety plan that includes several written components: hazard analysis, preventive controls,
procedures for monitoring implementation, corrective action procedures, verification procedures,
and a recall plan. Small facilities may qualify for modified requirements that are less
burdensome. Some of the cheesemakers who participated in this study had voluntarily developed
and implemented HACCP plans and spoke positively about the closer oversight that it instituted
in their operations and management practices. At the same time, audit regimes risk supplanting
decision-making with routinized practice (Busch 2004). HARPC requirements may favor
rationalized production over more discretionary and adaptive approaches.
Policymaking to accommodate and encourage smaller agrifood producers has focused on
laws and regulations. This study indicates that the regulatory process may also be improved for
these producers at the inspection level. Following are recommendations for inspector training.
Recommended Inspector Approaches. Inspectors and artisans in this study identified
approaches that improve the regulatory process for artisans, and in many cases for inspectors as
well. These include:
•

Work to understand how processors do things, and do not be afraid to ask questions. Do
not rush an inspection.

•
55

Engage with processors as people, on a human level.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans are common audit systems.
90

•

Work toward compliance, improving things gradually over time. Be collaborative with
processors in this. Address basic food safety concerns first, and then proceed to other
concerns.

•

Explain how to correct any violations, or find the information needed in order to correct a
problem. Explaining why is important, so that the processor understands.
Approaches to avoid include: sounding argumentative or blaming; bearing grudges;

taking things personally or emotionally; nitpicking or overwhelming the operator; telling
operators that they are doing things wrong.
Inspector Training. Inspectors should become more familiar with artisan and other smaller
processing facilities. Training should prepare them for equipment, approaches, and other
characteristics unique to smaller facilities; questions that smaller processors commonly pose;
practicalities of setting up a smaller facility; and common problem areas. Experience working
with other inspectors who are responsible for smaller facilities is also advisable. Inspectors in
this study who participated in MSU’s artisan cheesemaking course indicated that it improved
their understanding of farmstead and artisan cheesemakers.
Inspectors in this study emphasized the importance of “people skills” and of the time and
experience that it takes to develop these skills. They indicated a need for training on day-to-day
communication, for example identifying personality types and learning to work with different
types of people; resolving conflicts; and deescalating tense situations.

91

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CHAPTER 3
THE CRAFT OF FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION AND THE TECHNOLOGY OF ARTISANSHIP:
EXPLORING FLUID BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SOCIAL PHENOMENA
ABSTRACT
Artisan food processing and food safety regulation may appear to be quite separate social
phenomena. In fact, popular accounts of their relationship depict two colliding phenomena. This
chapter draws upon science and technology studies to explore the relationship between
artisanship and regulation. Observation of the interplay between them during food safety
inspections reveals that commonly assumed distinctions between the two phenomena blur. Their
relationship is neither rigid nor static. The boundary between them is negotiated and rendered
fluid by the multiple identities that human and non-human actors assume and by the multiple
logics that humans apply to what they do.
Food safety inspections provide opportunities for boundary management during which
artisans and inspectors negotiate points of coherence and divergence between their respective
phenomena. Artisans and inspectors both approach their work and their interactions with each
other in diverse and dynamic ways. When observed in practice, neither artisanship nor regulation
is exactly what we may expect it to be. Inspectors ply a craft; they draw on the tacit skills that
they have developed in learning their profession, and they use very few technologically
sophisticated implements during facility inspections. Artisan food processors use industrial
technology, and some of them organize production in a regimented way suggestive of operations
engineering. Implications for inspectors and artisans and for further research are considered.

102

I.

INTRODUCTION
Food safety inspectors and artisan food processors

56

seem to move in separate worlds.

The former enforce broad standards formulated in scientific and political processes, while the
latter pursue craft production methods adapted to individual situations. Some advocates of
artisanship and other smaller-scale agrifood production see an inherent conflict between
artisanship and regulation, claiming that regulation legitimates and reinforces the industrial
agrifood model to which artisanship represents an alternative. Recent debates on the food safety
regulation of small-scale and localized production demonstrate the difficulty of determining a
regulatory response to current agrifood production trends. It seems difficult to reconcile the
practices of regulators and small producers. What, then, is the relationship between artisanship
and regulation? Is it troubled, and if so in what ways? What to do?
This exploratory ethnographic study of the food safety inspection of artisan processing
problematizes popular characterizations of artisans, inspectors, and the gulf that presumably
separates them. It finds that the boundary between these two erstwhile distinct social phenomena
is fluid and negotiated. Observation of the interplay between artisanship and regulation during
food safety inspections reveals that commonly assumed distinctions between the two phenomena
blur. In practice, both artisans and inspectors approach their work and their interactions with
each other in diverse and dynamic ways. Artisan food processors use industrial technology, and
some of them organize production in a regimented way that suggests operations engineering.
Inspectors ply a craft; they draw on the tacit skills that they have developed in learning their
56

Artisan processing is defined in this dissertation as processing conducted at a small or
medium scale in which producers emphasize manual production techniques and are involved at
each step of the process. It involves batch rather than continuous production and allows for
variability in products and processes (American Cheese Society 2011; Blundell 2002; Bread
Bakers Guild of America 2013; de Roest and Menghi 2000; Paxson 2011).
103

profession, and they use very few technologically sophisticated implements during facility
inspections.
This chapter explores the shared space that is created during inspections and in which
artisan and inspector practices mingle and intersect. It argues that, in fact, artisanship and
regulation interact with and shape each other. The chapter explores these exogenous interactions.
True, phenomena that appear to have little in common—like artisanship and regulation—may
diverge from each other. But they may also at times cohere. One key to addressing the food
safety regulation of artisan processing lies in exploring the fluid and negotiated boundary offered
by food safety inspections.
The chapter comprises five sections. The next section examines in historical context the
ideas at the heart of the above policy debate—craft production, industrial production, and food
safety regulation. The third section describes the contemporary enactment of regulation and
artisanship in practice. The fourth section argues that the boundaries of these phenomena are
more fluid than they appear. Food safety inspections create boundary spaces shared by
artisanship and regulation in which artisans and inspectors negotiate points of coherence and
divergence between the two phenomena. The fifth and final section suggests the implications of
this work for further research and for inspectors and artisans.

II.

CRAFT PRODUCTION, INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, AND FOOD SAFETY REGULATION
The word artisan is in vogue, conjuring images of handcrafting, tradition, and careful

hard work (Horovitz 2011; see also Trudeau 2013). Critics of conventional agrifood production
(e.g., Kloppenburg et al. 2000) promote craft products as alternatives to “industrial food” and
charge that food safety regulations legitimate and reinforce industrial production. According to
104

this critique, regulations embody industrial thinking (DeLind and Howard 2008; Stuart 2008).
Artisans are seen to perpetuate craft traditions that predate industrial food production and the
consequent call for federal regulations. Yet at the same time, artisanship is a dissenting
alternative within an industrial idiom that it cannot wholly abandon (Ilbery and Maye 2005;
Sonnino and Marsden 2006; Vittersø et al. 2005). These understandings of craft, which juxtapose
it to industrial production, oversimplify and as a result fail to help us understand the practice of
artisanship in regulated and industrial settings.
Understanding the relationship between regulation and artisanship requires examining the
notions of craft production, industrial production, and food safety regulation that are at the heart
of the debate on the policy response to artisanship and other alternative agrifood trends. In this
section, I review the practices and logics that have informed craft production in Western history,
changes introduced by industrialization, and the historical development of federal food safety
regulation in the US.
A.

Craft Production
Contemporary US notions of craft and artisanship invoke specific features of pre-

industrial methods of production.

57

The terms refer to production that is done by hand rather

than by machine, with producers closely engaged throughout production processes. Production is
at a relatively small scale. There is variability in processes and products as artisans accommodate

57

Craft and artisan are used more or less synonymously in this dissertation and in popular
sources.
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fluctuations in ingredients and environment. Producers are independent, not affiliated with (or at
least not beholden to) larger, more powerful interests.

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Proponents commonly invoke the idea of tradition, which sounds stable and timeless
enough. However, traditions are invented and reinvented (Sonnino 2007; West [in press]). The
idea of tradition itself refers to different qualities and values in different contexts. “Traditional”
foods can be traced to specific periods, contexts, and meanings. This is as true of everyday
breads (Rubel 2011) as it is of specialty foods (Tregear 2003). Craft and artisanship have
signified different priorities, processes, and social relationships historically and from place to
place (Costin 2007; Heath and Meneley 2007). Even the apparently simple idea of nature
invoked in popular usage of the word artisan embodies historically specific associations and
political and social values (Schama 1995).
Contemporary notions of craft are selective. They reflect normative commitments
(Becker 1978). In particular, they critique the industrial paradigm that has dominated agrifood
production throughout much of the past century (Buttel 2003; Cochrane 1993; Lobao and Meyer
2001). Artisanship is seen as part of a trend toward new models of agricultural and rural
development that do not necessarily involve scale enlargement, reliance on industrial
technologies, or other aspects of what van der Ploeg et al. refer to as “the modernization project”
(2000, p. 395). Artisanship is seen to serve non-industrial interests (Kloppenburg et al. 2000;
Marx 1906 [1867]), and producers are assumed to have a greater orientation to community and to
craft than to personal profit (Lyson 2004; Tregear 2005). Closer connections are created between
58

See such popular-audience references as: Artisan Made-Northeast (2010); Bread Bakers Guild
of America (2013); Dietmann and Greenberg (n.d.); Geist (2013); Jenkins (2005); Marcus
(2012); Polis (2011); Rector (1999); Sakovitz-Dale (2006); Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese
(2013).
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food and territory and between producers and consumers (Renting et al. 2003; Tregear 2003).
“Traditional” products are assumed to be safer than their “industrial” counterparts (Paxson
2008).
This section draws on historical and critical scholarship to examine in more detail the
qualities and values emphasized by proponents of craft production.
Embodied Skill and Small Scale. Limited mechanization is a defining characteristic of
contemporary craft production (e.g., Blundell 2002; de Roest and Menghi 2000). Craft
production involves tacit knowledge and embodied skills that are developed through direct
experience rather than mediated by machines (Paxson 2011). This skill and judgment have
historically been acquired through apprenticeships involving observation, practice, repetition,
and rehearsal (Hobsbawm 1984; Terrio 2000). Production is a visceral activity that cannot be
fully prescribed in codified procedures or taught formally—what master baker Jeffrey
Hamelman calls “the education of the hands” (2013, p. xii; see also Polanyi 1958; Sudnow
2001). Knowledge may be acquired through formal training, but these “established external ways
of doing” are adapted and subordinated to artisans’ own products and production methods
(Gralton and Vanclay 2009, p. 200). The direct engagement of the producer, together with
reliance on manual techniques, limits the scale of production to what can be accomplished by
hand.
Variability and Adaptability. Work routines in pre-industrial societies were driven by what
EP Thompson terms “the logic of need” (1967, p. 59). Work was task oriented; that is,
fulfillment of obligations was gauged by completion of a task and not by time spent working, as
it would later be in industrial conditions. Thompson observes that, by industrial standards, this

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approach to work would come to appear inefficient. Contemporary craft production involves
“coming up with effective solutions to all the problems that consistently present themselves in
the process” (O’Connor 2007, p. 137) rather than following a linear, codified, or tightly
controlled process through which inputs are efficiently transformed into products. Craft is both
constrained and defined by locale and nature; it is invested with cultural as well as instrumental
meaning and is not merely an abstract act of producing products (Heath and Meneley 2007; Ulin
2002).
Autonomy. The figure of the “independent artisan” recurs throughout anthropological
scholarship (e.g., Geertz 1960). Yet while craftsmen historically worked independently of the
standards-setting and regulatory institutions that we know today—institutions that developed in
the twentieth century—they were constrained in other ways.
First, artisan production has not historically been free of power relations, whether at the
household or industry level (Costin 2007). In nineteenth-century England, the word artisan
referred in some instances to a master—a tradesman—who did not engage in production at all
but managed the laborers who executed the work (Hobsbawm 1984). Much European craft
production was governed by guilds to which artisans were accountable. In France, in fact, the
practice of artisanship arguably became more independent with the rise of “the individual” under
industrial capitalism after the French Revolution and the abolishment of the craft guilds (Sewell
1980). Second, contrary to the bucolic imagery popular in advertisements for artisan products,
many historical artisans were urban rather than rural craftsmen (Hobsbawm 1984; Marx 1906
[1867]; though see also Young 1996). Third, with the rise of industrialism, artisans engaged in
industrial work, providing skilled manual labor in nineteenth century factories. The adoption of
automated, mechanized processes and the concomitant deskilling of labor proceeded unevenly.
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The construction of industrial factories required skilled machinists to build machines (by hand),
to maintain them, and to make the parts with which to maintain them.
B.

Industrial Production
An understanding of contemporary craft requires that we also understand the industrial

approach to production from which it is differentiated. Through what non-human objects and
logics

59

is industrial production constituted? What would we expect to find in artisan practice if

regulations forced it into an industrial mold? This section considers two historical developments
that distinguish industrialization and to which craft production is popularly juxtaposed:
transformations in manufacturing technologies, and a logic driven by productive and
bureaucratic efficiency.
Manufacturing Technologies. The use of engine-powered machinery eclipsed manual work
as large-scale mechanized manufacturing developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in
England and the rest of the West (Hobsbawm 1984; Thompson, EP 1963). Giedion defines
mechanization as “dissecting work into its component operations” (1948, p. 31). While preindustrial craftsmen exercised a broad range of physical skills and possessed a diverse expertise,
the adoption of industrial technologies supplanted both the labor and expertise of workers.
“[T]he machine ate away at [the artisan’s] technical mastery one bite at a time, and, gradually,
the artisanal worker faded into the skilled industrial worker” (Hanagan 1977, p. 30).
Technological developments, particularly those that preserved food and reduced the need
for production labor, played significant roles in the increasing mass production of food products.
Canning was invented in 1795 by a French confectioner to supply the Napoleonic Wars (Appert
59

The concepts of non-humans and logics are introduced in Chapter 1.
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1810; Blumenthal 1990). The process was brought to the US in 1821 (Underwood 1914). Its
development over the nineteenth century was propelled by the convenience of canned foods as
war rations, increasing urbanization, and westward expansion (Busch, J 1981; Kranzberg and
Pursell 1967).

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The editor of a US trade publication, The Canning Trade, wrote in 1914 of “the

marvelous increase in the production of canned foods, from a few thousand cans fifty years
ago…to the present enormous output and consumption of over 3,000,000,000 cans” (Judge 1914,
p. 5). Mechanical refrigeration was invented in the 1860s by Charles Tellier, according to some
accounts. Tellier was a French engineer who believed it “would allow for the ‘rational’
reorganization of the global fresh food supply” and increase worker productivity (Freidberg
2008, p. 402). Refrigeration was introduced into commercial food distribution around 1880.
These industrial technologies had profound implications for the control of the food
supply and for the social relationships coordinated around food (Freidberg 2008; Thompson, PB
2010). Nineteenth-century craft workers in US canneries resisted the introduction of innovations
that would replace labor and, more importantly, decrease their control over production decisions
(Brown and Philips 1986).
A Logic of Efficiency. Machinery and other technological features of industrialism were not
ends in themselves but served a logic of productive and bureaucratic efficiency according to
which production was reorganized and controlled. Machinery served to standardize and automate
manufacturing processes (Giedion 1948). The materials of choice in facilities and equipment
were amenable to standardization; stainless steel was preferable to wood in this respect. In turn,

60

With varying degrees of success. The putrid quality of the “embalmed beef” supplied to US
troops during the Spanish-American War of 1898 became a scandal (Brown and Philips 1986;
New York Times staff 1899).
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these non-human objects themselves standardized the humans who used them (Busch, L 2000).
Just as technology was designed for human use, human work was adapted to technology, and it
was managed hierarchically (Gutman 1973; Kerr et al. 1960).
As an increasing amount of physical skill devolved to machines, authoritative knowledge
about production accrued to managers (Dubofsky 1996; Scott, AJ 1986). Work was reorganized
to centralize the management of machines and of increasingly unskilled workers (Scott, JC
1998). The adoption of scientific management approaches in the early twentieth century—
Taylorism—also increased managerial control over decision-making.

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Whereas preindustrial

manufacturers had commanded an understanding of the entire trajectory of production, the logic
of bureaucratic efficiency relegated to industrial workers a blinkered view of a limited set of
tasks. What had been a holistic understanding of the work was dispersed among many different
workers. Labor was put to efficient use with respect to time (Thompson, EP 1967). Investments
were made in facilities and equipment rather than in human labor.
C.

Food Safety Regulation in the US
The roots of the contention that food safety regulation is inimical to craft production are

not hard to find. Contemporary food safety regulation has its historical origins in a modern,
expert-driven, and hierarchical approach to social problems that differs sharply from that of craft
production as described above. This section considers the changes in artisan governance brought
about by the parallel developments of the modern state and of industrialism.

61

Scientific management and the drive to rationalize human activity would also find their way
into the domestic kitchens of the West. See Freeman (2004) and van Otterloo (2000).
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As argued above, the iconic images of independent family-based craft production that
dominate contemporary popular notions of artisanship often omit artisans’ historical connections
to broader political and economic actors (Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame 1981; Costin 2007; Heath
and Meneley 2007; Terrio 2000). Like other tradespeople and producers, artisans have long been
embedded in power relations of some kind or other (Costin 2007; Elias 2000; Hanagan 1977;
Inomata 2001). European craft guilds set and enforced standards and manipulated markets
(Richardson and McBride 2009; Smith 1937 [1776]; cf. Epstein 2008). However, the
Enlightenment witnessed the gradual transformation of the state into the modern administrative
institution that we know today, imposing formal, abstract order; promulgating standards; and
assuming governance of economic entities such as craft producers (Foucault 2007 [1978]; Scott,
JC 1998; Sewell 1980).
Industrialization accompanied the development of the modern state, and traces of the
rational, managerial logic of industrialism may be found in contemporary food law. Nineteenthcentury problems in industrial food production provided the proximate impetus for contemporary
food safety regulation.

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A more fundamental cause, however, may be found in the modernist

transformation that sought and gradually imposed bureaucratic and managerial solutions to social
problems such as hazardous food.

63

The technological optimism of modernity reached full voice

in the US during the Progressive Era, a time during which social problems came to be viewed as
technical problems of engineering to be solved by experts (Wiebe 1967). Society was seen as a
machine to be carefully controlled, requiring a hierarchical approach to both management and
62
63

More detail on this is in Chapter 2 (page 62).

In other words, the solution and the problem have iteratively co-defined each other. The food
safety problems that stemmed from rationalized agrifood production found their solution in
rationalized government (Otter 2011).
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knowledge (Scott, JC 1998). Scientific knowledge itself became industrialized during this time,
and craft knowledge less valid (Otter 2011; Star 1992). As Progressive Era legislation, US food
law, even today, reflects the organizing principles—the logic—of the late nineteenth century:
rational management, specialization, and an ostensibly apolitical reliance on scientific and
technological expertise (Millstone 2007; Sunstein 1990; Wiebe 1967).
Techno-bureaucratic conceptions of “good” production may not readily accommodate the
adaptive practices of artisan production (da Cruz and Menasche [in press]; Sylvander and
Biencourt 2006). Contemporary food law emphasizes instrumental rationality and
standardization as conditions of food safety. US food safety regulations specify the properties of
food contact surfaces and set standards of identity that define the legal composition of common
food products.

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Critics of governmental responses to major recent food scares point to reliance

on “technological fixes” and audit-based bureaucratic oversight rather than attention to the
industrial agrifood practices to which the scares are attributed (Busch, L 2004; DeLind and
Howard 2008; Dunn 2007; Stuart and Worosz 2012).

III.

THE CRAFT OF INSPECTION AND THE INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY OF ARTISANSHIP
With essential features of craft production, industrial production, and food safety

regulation established in historical context, we turn to the contemporary enactment of food safety
regulation and artisan food processing. When regulatory and artisan practices are observed at
close range, the differences between them become more difficult to pin down than one might
expect. In fact, as will be shown below, it is perilous to juxtapose the notions of craft production
and regulation, or even the notions of craft and industrial production (see also Lowe and Ward
64

21 CFR § 155
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1997). Artisans make use of non-human objects that their supporters may dismiss as industrial,
and some of them follow—at their own initiative—regimented procedures suggestive of
operations engineering, an ideal Progressive-Era model. Food safety inspectors—the putative
foot soldiers of industrial food—carry out their work in a manner that may be lauded as
artisan.

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The findings presented in this section emerged during research on the food safety
regulation of artisan food processing in Michigan between 2011 and 2013. They reflect 1)
remarks made by artisans and state food safety inspectors during semi-structured interviews and
2) field observations of processing and of inspections.
A.

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The Craft of Inspection
Food safety inspectors ply a craft. True, the practice of inspection draws upon a large

body of scientific knowledge and an accumulation of statutes, regulations, and other policy
documents. Yet conducting an inspection calls upon embodied skill and tacit knowledge quite
apart from what is conveyed in codified law or agency procedures. Inspections are adaptive and
interactive processes that are contingent on the facility being inspected, the people with whom
the inspector engages, and the inspector’s own skill. Inspectors work independently, and their
tools are both few and technologically simple.

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The word “hybridization” might also be used to describe the unexpectedly mixed
characteristics of regulatory and artisan practice. However, a hybrid is a combination of two
pure, distinct entities. As will be argued in section IV, the idea that any given phenomenon exists
in pure form, or comes into being in isolation from other phenomena, is a fiction.
66
Methodology is presented in Chapter 1.
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In fact, the “task orientation” of pre-industrial work routines (Thompson, EP 1967, see
above), much more than the productive and bureaucratic efficiency of industrial work,
characterizes the practice of inspection. First, many of the inspectors in this study attended to
Thompson’s “observed necessity,” taking whatever time was required to communicate with
producers and to help them understand the justification behind regulations. Second, they did not
clearly demarcate between “work” and “life” in their interactions with artisans. They chatted
about children, pets, and hobbies as well as about regulatory compliance. They “made
themselves human” and approached artisans on a human level as well, looking “past the
business,” in the words of one inspector. Third, this approach to inspections may appear to an
outside observer to be an unreasonable and inefficient investment of time. The time that
inspectors spend in facilities cannot be evaluated in standardized (i.e., industrial) terms—not in
inspector hours per square foot of facility, per unit of production output, or even (if it were
possible) per microbe. Measuring efficiency would be futile and at cross-purposes with the
“logic of need” according to which many inspectors operate (Thompson, EP 1967, p. 59).
Developing Embodied Skill. Inspectors learn their jobs through professional and life
experience. The practice of food safety inspections requires knowledge and skills that are not
conveyed in regulations themselves or through an understanding of the scientific basis for
regulatory requirements. Translating regulations so that producers understand and respond to
them involves communication skills, discernment, and patience.
Artisans and inspectors both spoke of the difference that age and experience make in an
inspector. One middle-aged inspector stated firmly that if he had started directly out of college,
he “absolutely would have failed at this job” because he saw the world in black and white.
Younger inspectors were generally characterized as stricter, more “by the book,” and harder to
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work with. “Being yourself” and establishing interpersonal connections were important.
Inspectors who had children or who had taught school spoke of the difference those experiences
made in the greater flexibility and understanding that they brought to inspections: “If you don’t
take the time to turn yourself into a human being for [producers], then they see you as a bad
parent.” Several indicated that working with more experienced inspectors would provide
important training.
Variable and Adaptive Work. Inspection is adaptive work that is difficult to standardize.
There is tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1958) even in what appear to be regimented activities. Asked
what made someone a good inspector, a dairy inspector began his response stating, “Flexibility
as things come up that you have to react to.”
Inspectors “make” policy within the varying situational contexts that their field work
presents. In the many instances in which a violation is not classified “priority,”

67

inspectors have

broad discretion in deciding whether to record it. “You don’t want to overload people,” one
explained, “I never write up everything that I could.” Their interaction with producers is integral
to the practice of inspection:
If there’s no one there, you have to write down everything you see. [But
if] the producer is there and you have a conversation, there are things that
you don’t need to write down.
Dairy inspector
Many of the inspectors in this study spent considerable time talking with producers in
order to learn about their operations and their approaches to production. They indicated that
artisans, like many small plant owners, rely on them as quality control consultants; smaller food
67

Priority violations represent immediate health risks to consumers. Examples include insect
infestations and refrigerator temperatures that are too high.
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facilities may not have the resources to hire specialized staff. Inspections involved lengthy
conversations about issues only tangentially related to food safety. “Walk in their shoes,” one of
them described her approach to her job. These discussions with producers built trust, established
inspectors’ credibility, and enabled inspectors to better exercise their discretionary decision
making:
[The interpersonal rapport between the producer and the inspector] allows
the humanness to come through in a program that’s designed to remove it.
All of the regulations…are designed to remove the decision making
process, remove interpretation, remove humanity, and make it a cut and
dried, black and white, “do not think.” Nobody likes life like that. On
either side. Building a relationship allows both parties to address the
absurdity of it while seeking a mutually satisfactory experience.
Jam producer
Regulatory outcomes are affected by what the inspector knows of a producer’s situation,
by a producer’s receptiveness to inspector directives, and by the trust and collegiality that they
have established. During one bakery inspection observed in this study, the inspector’s decision
whether to record non-priority violations was based on her knowledge of the bakers’ situation
and her past experience with them. She did not record the violations that she was confident
would be corrected, and she recorded violations that she felt might require extra incentive.
Outcomes are also affected by inspectors’ experiences at other facilities. Inspectors
indicated that their degree of familiarity with artisan facilities affected their interpretations of
artisan situations. In some cases, as artisans explained their methods and the equipment they
used, inspectors adjusted their understanding of concomitant health risks and, hence, their
assessment of what constituted a violation. Some food inspectors who had initially been reluctant
to accept the use of linen-lined wicker proofing baskets in bread baking came to view them as an
acceptable part of artisan processes.

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Other studies also offer evidence that inspectors adapt to enforcement situations. Policy
directives are not simply conveyed, intact, from written rules or court decisions to enforcement.
They instead involve interactions that are not reflected in legal codes—myriad translations that
are influenced by extralegal actors, agency resources, and the enforcement styles of individual
inspectors (Harrison et al. 1997; Hutter and Sorensen 1993; Levi and Valverde 2008).
Enforcement situations vary, and rules are interpreted. “[A]uthority and rulemaking are actually
quite dispersed, both laterally and hierarchically, and…understandings of law circulate rather
than move strictly from the top down” (Grattet and Jenness 2005, p. 896; see also Hutter
1989).

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In a classic policy study of “street-level bureaucrats,” Lipsky conceptualizes policy as
comprising inspectors’ decisions, routines, and the “devices [inspectors] invent to cope with
uncertainties and work pressures” (2010 [1980], p. xii). In some instances, social interactions in
the field may determine administrative actions more than do administrative mandates themselves
(Arce 1989). Lowe and Ward (1997) found that UK environmental inspectors worked to
accommodate farmers’ notions of right and wrong as they enforced regulations, rather than
strictly interpreting regulatory directives. In a study of the application of global technology
standards in development contexts, van Zwanenberg et al. remark that successful regulations
“often need to accommodate plural framings of the regulatory purpose in order to attain consent
and compliance” (2011, p. 15). In the years immediately following the passage of the 1906 Pure
Food and Drugs Act, US government inspectors adopted an advisory rather than strict

68

See also legal and economic studies of firm economics, activities, and behavior that impact
compliance (e.g., Henson and Heasman 1998; Malloy 2003).
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enforcement role. Their interactions with food manufacturers had indicated that education would
be more effective than policing in obtaining compliance (Law, MT 2006).
Autonomy. Inspectors work independently, both physically and as decision-makers. They
work out of state vehicles and manage their own time. Vehicles serve as mobile offices,
containing computers, printers, and paper files. Many meals are eaten on the road. Although the
practice of inspection is founded upon a large body of scientific knowledge and a hierarchical
classification of statutes, regulations, and other policy documents, inspectors internalize this
information; they make decisions independently and often “on the fly” in enforcement situations.
When an inspector is not sure how to address a situation, he or she calls on other inspectors or
supervisors for advice. Regional supervisors convene periodic meetings of field staff, and field
staff meet annually for a statewide training.
Technological Simplicity. The implements that inspectors use in conducting food safety
inspection are few and technologically simple. During the inspections observed in this study,
implements included clipboards, paper, and pens; flashlights; probe thermometers; and paper
strips for testing sanitizer solutions. Inspectors took notes by hand, often in pocket notebooks,
and sometimes checked boxes on paper forms. Following inspections, they entered their findings
into Evaluation Reports on laptop computers either in the facilities or at another location. These
reports form the official and public record of a facility’s compliance status and provide a
reference for future evaluations.
B.

The Industrial Technology of Artisanship
When observed at close range, the practice of artisanship has elements of industrialism.

Examining the role that these industrial elements play sharpens our picture of artisanship in a

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contemporary, industrialized, regulated context. It also improves our understanding of the
relationship between artisanship and food safety regulation in ways that will be discussed below.
Artisan food processors in the contemporary US make use of manufacturing technologies
and standardize some aspects of their production operations (Hamelman 2013; Paxson 2012).
Even where not required by regulations, most of the artisans in this study used some form of
motor-powered technology, and many of them kept records beyond what regulations required. In
other words, to the extent that artisanship is defined by a reliance on manual, pre-industrial
methods and a liberal, intuitive tolerance for variability, much contemporary artisan practice is
not “artisan.” This is not to say that artisans fail at their own craft. Instead, broad
characterizations of artisanship as “non-industrial” fail to do justice to the skill, adaptability, and
autonomy that artisans exercise within a broader industrial context. This section examines artisan
use of industrial technologies to preserve food and reduce labor, and it considers the place of
standardization and industrial technologies within a logic of craft production.
Industrial Technologies. Artisans use manufacturing technologies in several ways, including
to control temperature during production processes, to limit microbial growth, and to reduce
labor.
Some of the bakeries visited in this research used convection ovens rather than woodfired brick ovens, although the law allows brick ovens. Convection ovens are heated electrically
or with natural gas and require less time and labor than do brick ovens. Those who used
convection ovens produced bread in quantities that made brick ovens impractical.

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All facilities visited in this study used mechanical refrigeration—refrigerators and
freezers.

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Refrigeration controlled fermentation for bakers and cheesemakers. Some bakers

used refrigerated space as dough retarders, in which the temperature slowed the development of
bread dough until bakers were ready to allow it to rise. Cheesemakers managed the temperatures
of aging rooms, or caves, by mechanical means. Refrigerators and freezers prevented unwanted
microbial growth in ingredients and finished products.
Mechanical mixers and stirrers were commonly used as labor saving devices. All bakers
used automated dough mixers, and nearly all cheesemakers used milk pumps or automated
stirrers. This enabled artisans to produce larger quantities of product and freed up time for other
tasks (see Paxson [2012] for similar findings). In some instances, this machinery represented a
means of preventing strain on employees’ bodies. Taking dough out of mixers involves bending
over and extracting large volumes of dough by hand. One baker had installed a tipping
mechanism to reduce bodily strain. He next hoped to install a machine to raise and lower the
facility’s oven loader in order to prevent employee shoulder strain.
Cheesemakers discussed the relative merits of stirring curd by hand or with a mechanical
stirrer. Nearly all of the cheesemakers in this study used mechanical stirrers. Describing the
interaction of machinery with the curd, this cheesemaker deemed machinery to be acceptable at
certain points in cheesemaking if it would not “do any more damage:”
When you take milk in cheesemaking, you’re damaging it the whole time.
Everything you do is going to do some damage…The only reason I hand
stir it is, it’s on such a small scale that a mechanized arm doesn’t make
economic sense. If I had that mechanized arm, I would still do the initial
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I had intended, but was not able, to include Amish processors and others who do not use
electricity.
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first 20 minutes’ stirring by hand, because the curd is very soft and fragile
and the arms might damage it. After that, it’s firmed up, and the arms
won’t damage it.
Cheesemaker
Standardization. Contemporary artisans manage a delicate balance. On one hand is the
variability of working within ambient temperatures and humidities and using ingredients that
may fluctuate throughout the year. On the other hand, artisans set quality standards and work to
attain them, and they produce for markets that may frown on surprises. Time and temperature
controls and careful recordkeeping helped meet and monitor artisans’ standards.
In fact, the regimentation and recordkeeping of some artisan processes was suggestive of
operations engineering. Artisans felt that the creative dimension of craft production has been
overstated in popular accounts. “[You] don’t survive it, if you don’t have that attention-to-detail
side of you,” stated a farmstead cheesemaker.
Industrial Technology and Craft Logic. Artisans use industrial technology, but they do not
adopt an industrial logic of production. If, as argued above, mechanization does not by itself
define industrialism, then neither does its absence define artisanship. The difference between
industrial and craft production lies in part in the logics according to which artisans define these
technologies as actors in their processes. It lies in the meanings that artisans ascribe to the
technologies that they use.
Artisans put industrial technology to the service of craft production. They use machinery
selectively. For example, the tipping mechanism described above served workers by reducing
bodily strain. In another bakery:
I use a mixer that does all the heavy lifting for me. And that’s certainly not
handcrafting. But there is a style of mixing that I employ that is not cookie
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cutter mixing. I mix to touch, to feel, to temperature, to ration…If I
undermix, then I know that at the bench I have a lot more additional work
to do over the next few hours or the next 24 hours. That’s certainly an
artisanal approach.
Baker
In contrast, in a thoroughgoing process of industrialization, human work is adapted to machinepowered processes, as machines define standards and work routines.
While popular notions of artisanship emphasize its adaptation to nature—such as ambient
temperatures and seasonal fluctuations in ingredients—artisans interact with many other
variables as well. Participation in certain markets may necessitate the use of industrial
equipment. Retailers may require bar codes on packaging, and customers who shop for the
holidays far in advance may prefer foods that are vacuum-packed. As argued above, traditions
are adaptive. The artisans in this study adapted to accommodate many dimensions of their
environment—socioeconomic and natural, as well as regulatory:
Those regulations, to me, are just like that pasture out there. If those does
[female goats] go out in the north pasture and they eat wild mustard leaves
all day or wild chives, I’m going to taste it in the milk. So I need to adapt.
Farmstead cheesemaker
IV.

FLUID BOUNDARIES BETWEEN ARTISANSHIP AND FOOD SAFETY REGULATION
When observed in practice, neither artisanship nor regulation is exactly what we may

expect it to be. They differ, but not in the ways we might expect them to. One key to addressing
the food safety regulation of artisan processing lies in exploring the shared space between the
two phenomena—the space that is created during inspections and in which these practices
mingle and intersect.

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This section builds conceptually upon science and technology studies (STS) to approach
phenomena such as artisanship and regulation as enacted in practice through endogenous and
exogenous interactions. Endogenous interactions pertain to a specific phenomenon: Artisanship
is enacted by a cast of actors that includes artisans, ingredients, tables, and other non-humans.
Regulation is enacted by a different cast, one that includes inspectors, thermometers, clipboards,
and still other non-humans.
The idea of exogenous interaction takes the idea of enactment-through-interaction a step
farther. It dispenses with any fiction that these phenomena are enacted independently of the other
(Callon 1986; Jasanoff 2004). Endogenous interactions are not enough to bring a phenomenon
into being. As sturdy and self-contained as ideas of artisanship and regulation may appear to be,
their boundaries are porous and malleable, and they cannot help but shape each other, in
exogenous interaction. Artisanship is not a stand-alone phenomenon that is enacted
independently of markets, ingredient suppliers, or even inspectors. Regulation is not a standalone phenomenon that is enacted only by politicians, scientists, and administrators.

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Exogenous interactions occur at the boundaries where two phenomena intersect, such as
during food safety inspections. Here, artisans and inspectors interact and negotiate the
relationship between their respective phenomena. This section first describes the endogenous as
well as exogenous interactions through which artisanship and regulation are enacted. Second, it
explores the boundary function that food safety inspections fulfill as artisans and inspectors

70

This chapter nevertheless accepts the idea that there is a specific phenomenon that is
identifiable as artisanship, and a separate phenomenon that is identifiable as regulation. The
boundaries between the phenomena may be fluid, and the phenomena may shape each other. Yet
I accept conventional semantics that recognizes such a “thing” as artisanship, and such a
different “thing” as regulation.
124

manage exogenous interactions. Third, it examines the ways in which artisanship and regulation
cohere and diverge.
A.

Endogenous and Exogenous Interactions
Endogenous Interactions. Phenomena are enacted through interactions between human and

non-human actors (Callon 1986; Latour 1987; Law, J and Hassard 1999). Endogenous
interactions are the interactions through which specific phenomena are enacted. As a baker
enacts artisanship, he buys ingredients, mixes them to make dough using tools and equipment
that he has purchased, lets the dough proof, and eventually—after a further series of non-humans
and interactions—puts the dough in an oven, from which it will emerge as bread.
Inspectors are attuned to interactions that lead not so much to the food product intended
by the processor, but to potential illnesses or other threats to public safety. With the aid of
flashlights, thermometers, and other objects, they follow a set of non-food actors that include
pathogens, contaminants, and adulterants. The actions to which inspectors attend are those that
might introduce these problems into the production process or allow them to persist through to
the finished product. Inspectors’ own observation practices in this study echoed ANT
methodology. Once inside a facility, they “follow[ed] the flow of the food,” as one put it. “To
make our food safe, we need to look at the interaction of the food, food employees, and
environment.”
Different regulators and artisans carry out their work in different ways; hence there are at
least as many versions of regulatory and artisan practice as there are regulators and artisans. Each
artisan uses different ingredients, tools, techniques, and skills, and applies his or her own logic to
this process. He or she enacts a version of artisanship that differs from that of other artisans, and

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that may itself change slightly from one day to the next, one season to the next. Regulatory
practice, too, differs from one regulator to another.
Exogenous Interactions. The boundaries that delimit phenomena are more porous than they
may appear. Phenomena interact with each other; the humans and non-humans involved in any
given phenomenon play roles in enacting other phenomena. Regulatory and artisan practice may
appear to be quite unrelated to each other and to be enacted by quite different sets of human and
non-human actors. Yet artisanship is among the phenomena that shape regulatory practice, and
regulations are among the phenomena that shape artisan practice. Past experiences also shape
these practices. Phenomena are enacted iteratively over time as humans interact with a wide
variety of non-humans and logics (Callon 1991; see also Butler 2006 [1999]).
Two types of exogenous interactions emerged in this study. First, the non-humans and
logics implicated in any given phenomenon are shaped by human actors’ involvement in other
phenomena. Legal requirements, input availability, buyer expectations, and local norms connect
artisans to a diversity of state, industry, consumer, and other actors. Artisans “are inescapably
constituted within regulatory and market formations” (Paxson 2011, p. 117). Sewell’s argument
concerning French artisans between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries is equally true in the
contemporary US: “The culture of artisans must be…defined in relation to the culture of other
groups, and as both participating in and reacting to…larger social, political, and ideological
struggles…” (1980, p. 12-13).
These exogenous interactions between artisans and actors who are not directly involved
in the production process—such as suppliers, marketers, and food safety inspectors—can be seen
in the findings above. Exogenous phenomena shaped artisans’ decisions to adopt vacuum

126

packing technology and use bar codes. When an inspector suggested changes in the production
71

process to improve regulatory compliance, she shaped—and did not appear to coerce —the
artisan’s production practices and his perspective on production.
One may not think of artisanship as shaping regulation. Yet an artisan’s practices and
situation affect whether violations are recorded. The baker who educated his inspector about
craft production that used wicker proofing baskets and wood-fired brick ovens shaped her view
of the potential food safety risks created during phases of production. Artisans’ demand for
quality control advice shapes the role that inspectors play.
Second, the non-humans and logics implicated in any given phenomenon are shaped by
human actors’ past experiences. Regulations come to “mean” what they do through the
cumulative interactions between inspectors and the practices in the plants they have inspected.
When most of these experiences have been in inspecting larger plants, inspectors expect to see
regulations operationalized in the same way at smaller plants. A process of path dependence
develops (Callon 1991; David 1994) as the practices and equipment used in larger plants come to
define inspectors’ food processing standards. Indeed, as described in the previous section, food
inspectors overcame their initial suspicion of artisan bakers’ wicker proofing baskets as they
interacted with artisans over time and became more familiar with artisan practices.
Similarly, changes that an artisan made from one inspection to the next affected the
extent to which an actor or activity represented a problem to an inspector. For instance, growth
of mold on walls raised distinct concerns. During one visit to a cheese plant, an inspector looked
at the walls of an aging room and noticed what may have been mold. He stood on a ladder to
71

The matter of asymmetrical power is addressed on page 135.
127

inspect the spots closely, and they did not appear to be fresh. He commented to me that, since his
previous visit, the cheesemaker had reduced humidity problems in the aging room considerably.
Although the inspector preferred to see no mold at all, what he saw on this visit represented
improvement. It indicated that his efforts to educate the cheesemaker and improve his business
had been successful.
B.

Boundaries
Popular debates on the food safety regulation of artisan and other smaller-scale

processing create an impression of two colliding phenomena. Yet a shared space, a boundary
space, emerges in the finer-grained investigation described here. The relationship between these
phenomena is neither rigid nor static. It is fluid, and it is negotiated during food safety
inspections as artisans and inspectors manage the boundaries that only partly separate their
phenomena.
Boundaries are rendered fluid by the multiple identities that human and non-human actors
assume and by the multiple logics that humans apply. “People inhabit many different domains at
once” (Star 1991, p. 52; see also Haraway 1988; Law, J 1991; Schatzki 2002).

72

The

possibilities for artisans and inspectors to find common ground are rich; they have recourse to a
variety of justifications for what they do, and for what they understand the other as doing
(Boltanski and Thévenot 2006[1991]). Inspectors are law enforcers and consultants, and they call
upon a variety of strategies (Hutter 1989). Artisans are processors and marketers, and they act
from a variety of motives (Nielsen and Parker 2012; Tregear 2005). Both may also have
children, pursue hobbies, and be involved in community life. Further, any given non-human
72

Identities are negotiated both exogenously and endogenously. See Mol’s (2002) discussion of
Butler (2006 [1999]).
128

object implicated in artisanship or inspection may acquire multiple identities depending on the
logic that is applied to it. Consequently, phenomena are variable in practice; they are constantly
made and remade in the interactions of non-humans, human actors, and logics (Callon 1991).

73

Boundary spaces between phenomena, such as those created in food safety inspections,
offer opportunities for actors to negotiate—to operate within each other’s worlds and to identify
ways of cooperating (Callon 1991; Mol 2002; Star and Griesemer 1989). Artisans and inspectors
“tack back and forth” during inspections (Star 2010). They may disagree about specific practices
and requirements, but as they learn about each other’s practices and priorities, they may also
identify points of compromise.

74

Regulatory practice evidences the limits of standardization. Even when standards are
strictly enforced—and we see above that they may not always be—their enforcement is not
standardized. Inspectors accommodate uncertainties. In fact, federal food safety regulations
themselves, such as those governing food manufacture,

75

are stated generally enough to

necessitate interpretation. Regulatory practice does not necessarily “shoehorn” artisan practice
into something that artisans do not want it to be. The craft dimension of inspection allows
inspectors to apply regulations in variable ways. As the jam producer quoted above stated, the
73

For that matter, it may not be possible to characterize even the regulatory system according to
a single logic. Regulations occupy different “worlds” depending on how they are justified
(Boltanski and Thévenot 2006[1991]). They may be seen to serve markets (Stigler 1971), serve
the state by standardizing activities (Scott, JC 1998), or serve a notion of the public welfare
(Pigou 2002 [1952]). See also Chapter 2.
74
The importance of interaction between two very different sets of actors in resolving regulatory
matters for artisans is similar to the critical role of multi-stakeholder engagement and
transdisciplinary knowledge in sustainable development (Peterson 2013; Peterson and Mager
2010).
75
E.g., 21 CFR § 110.
129

interactive nature of inspections creates opportunities for artisans and inspectors to reintroduce
interpretation, decision-making, and “humanity,” as he put it, “into a program that’s designed to
remove [them].” Inspections may actually accommodate and maintain variety and adaptability
rather than “collapsing” them, as regulations are otherwise expected to do (Scott, JC 1998; Star
1991, 2010).
C.

Coherence and Divergence
Phenomena such as artisanship and regulation may both cohere and diverge. What

happens between them is negotiated in the boundary space formed where they intersect, such as
during food safety inspections. In this section, coherence is understood to happen when artisans
and inspectors both enact their respective phenomena as they wish to. Divergence is understood
to happen when artisans are compelled to do things that conflict with their versions of artisan
practice, or inspectors fail to obtain compliance, or both. This section presents instances of
coherence and divergence that emerged in this study.
Coherence. This study provides evidence that regulations enable artisans to pursue their
own styles of production. It also provides evidence that inspectors obtain compliance even from
processors such as artisans, who approach production in what may appear to be a heterodox way.
Importantly, the artisans and inspectors in this study shared a concern for food safety, and in
many cases defined it in the same way, although they did not always agree on how to achieve it.
Asked whether regulations impeded them from doing what they wanted to do, and
whether they would revise regulations if they could, most artisans shrugged the question off. One
baker responded, “It’s just a conversation.” He indicated that he ran new production ideas past
his inspector and that they discussed how he might make desired changes while meeting

130

requirements. Questioned about their rigorous recordkeeping practices, some of which exceeded
those required by law, cheesemakers indicated that they would need the records in the event of a
food scare or market recall.
Artisans’ resource constraints affected the coherence of the two phenomena more than
did non-humans or logics specifically associated with craft production. Asked whether artisan
facilities posed more safety risks or regulatory challenges than did larger facilities, inspectors
replied that the risks and challenges were simply different. Artisans’ relative lack of expertise in
quality control and regulatory matters posed greater barriers to compliance than did their
production practices.
Coherence was facilitated as inspectors drew on craft logic and artisans employed what
may be considered industrial thinking. The craft dimension of inspection allowed inspectors to
identify points of coherence that may not have been possible under an unvarying application of
requirements. A dairy inspector, for example, described the flexibility that he had developed over
his career. In his current practice, a non-priority violation that was corrected during an inspection
could be deemed compliance: “What’s wrong with ‘Hey, put the light bulb back in, and we’ll
call it good?’” Similarly, the regimented, almost engineer-like approach of some artisans helped
them to understand the logic that informed regulatory requirements. Inspectors valued artisans’
care and attention to detail as an indication that they had “the right mindset.”
Coherence was also achieved when artisans and inspectors accepted issues that they
could not reconcile by identifying other common concerns. An inspector did not cite a floor that
was in need of repair because, from experience, she knew that the producer was doing as much
as she could to improve the facility. A producer complied with an inspector’s order to install

131

plumbing that she considered unnecessary because she trusted his overall intentions and believed
it would make it easier to negotiate other, bigger issues in the future.
Divergence. At times, the dour expectations for the relationship between artisanship and
regulation are realized. Artisans are compelled to do things that conflict with their principles or
practice. Inspectors fail to obtain compliance.
Some artisans disagreed in principle with legal definitions of food safety and standards of
hygiene. More than one, for example, argued that exposure to microbes was in fact desirable,
that it promoted long-term health.

76

They did not believe that hair or linen threads (which are

legally deemed adulterants) posed food safety risks. Yet they had little choice in these matters,
which constitute priority violations. If an inspector determined that linen-lined wicker proofing
baskets were not safe to use in a specific bakery, the baker had little choice but to comply.
Artisans felt that appealing to their inspectors’ supervisors or taking other action risked irritating
their inspectors, and it appeared that few were willing to do so.
Several cheesemakers took issue with the practical implications of antibiotic testing
requirements. First, milk must be tested for antibiotic residues even if a herd is not customarily
treated with antibiotics.

77

Some farmstead cheesemakers who did not use antibiotics did not

76

Inspectors also saw the value of building human immune systems. However, they argued that
current immune systems are not as robust as they were in previous generations. Stricter standards
of hygiene had become more important in preventing foodborne illness. Some artisans agreed
with this and recognized the challenges of “recharging” immune systems. A farmstead
cheesemaker stated, “I believe one of the ways back to good health is exposure [to microbes].
But I don’t want to be the creamery doing it.”
77
Michigan Manufacturing Milk Law of 2001, §288.692.
132

agree with this requirement.

78

Second, regulations have required more expensive antibiotic

testing protocols in recent years.

79

Again, however, artisans have little choice but to comply—

although in both this and the previous example, it should be noted that artisans’ markets demand
food produced according to conventional standards of safety. Artisans respected (although
sometimes ruefully) the authority of the government to set these standards.
Inspectors spoke of the limits they encountered in obtaining compliance. They disputed
the oft-cited belief of business owners that “the inspector can shut you down.” Shutting a
business down is not as easy as it may sound, they said, and it is a last resort. It involves going to
court, “which is the last thing an inspector wants to do.” Instead, they worked toward
compromise with producers or enrolled the help of senior staff in identifying solutions that were
workable to both parties.
Ultimately, instances of divergence in this study related little to the practical
requirements of regulations. Intractable disagreements related more often to interpersonal
dynamics and attitudes. Artisans and inspectors alike criticized processors who “believed they
had nothing more to learn” about production. Artisans and inspectors, too, criticized the “cop”
attitude that some inspectors adopted.

78

However, some farmstead cheesemakers who did not use antibiotics did agree with this
requirement. One, for example, acknowledged that there may be exceptions in the case of sick
animals. She recounted an episode in which a sick doe had been removed from the milk line,
treated with antibiotics, and then was inadvertently milked. Antibiotic testing confirmed that the
milk was not acceptable for processing.
79
FDA Grade “A” Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, 2007 Revision, Appendix N.
133

V.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

A.

Conclusions
This chapter has explored the relationship between food safety regulations and artisan

food processing by examining interactions between regulatory and artisan practice. Regulation
and artisanship may appear worlds apart, intersecting only when they collide. Artisans’ and
inspectors’ principles and practices are assumed to be in hopeless conflict. However, on the
closer examination conducted in this study, the two phenomena are shown to have more in
common than this stereotypical view allows, and they exist in greater harmony. They share
unexpected features. Food safety inspectors ply a craft. Contemporary artisans use industrial
technology, and some of them employ what may be deemed an industrial logic in their
operations.
Artisanship and regulation also interact with and shape each other. The boundaries of
both phenomena are fluid. Food safety inspections provide a loamish

80

boundary space at the

intersection of artisanship and regulation. Here, inspectors and artisans negotiate their
interactions, their understandings of each other and each other’s work, and their differences. This
boundary space yields coherence between the two phenomena when artisans are able to pursue
their own objectives and inspectors obtain compliance. When this does not happen—when the
two phenomena diverge—the boundary is a fraught space of frustration, misunderstanding, or
conflict.

80

Loamish: A variant of the term loamy, borrowed here from soil science to refer metaphorically
to a rich, well-textured substrate.
134

B.

Implications for Further Research
The Question of Power. In this chapter, I have largely sidestepped the matter of coercion

and asymmetrical power and authority. The chapter has focused instead on symmetrical
interactions of artisans and inspectors, flatly contradicting conventional wisdom about the
relationship between food safety regulation and artisan processing. I have done so purposely in
order to correct a deficit of research in this area.

81

Little attention to these interactions has

appeared in food policy research. Much research on small-scale and alternative food initiatives
assumes asymmetry.
Ultimately, though, as artisans and inspectors agreed, inspectors have more power. True,
artisans interacted well with inspectors in all of the respects described in this chapter. Often, this
rapport appeared to be genuinely trustful and collaborative. But artisans also recognized, as a jam
producer advised, “You want them on your side. Because if you antagonize them, they can make
your life [miserable].”
Inspectors and artisans may draw from a broad and malleable set of logics in order to
justify what they do and in order to achieve coherence. Yet not all logics, not all worlds, are
equal. As Star argues, “Power is about whose metaphor brings worlds together, and holds them
there” (1991, p. 52; see also Bowker and Star 2000; Scott, JC 1998). STS researchers have
developed a rich vocabulary for conceptualizing the ways in which different actors and different
versions of phenomena may achieve balance and avoid (or at least manage) collision. Further
research may apply such concepts as translation (Callon 1986; Latour 1987), alignment (Callon
1991), distribution (Latour 2005), and inclusion (Mol 2002), as well as principal-agent theory
81

For exceptions, see, e.g., Arce (1989); Grattet and Jenness (2005); Harrison et al. (1997);
Hutter (1989); Lipsky (2010 [1980]); Lowe and Ward (1997).
135

(Guston 1999) to investigate the negotiation of power in exogenous interactions, problematizing
what Mol refers to as the “politics of who” and the “politics of what” (2002, p. 166, 172).
Convention theory also provides a framework for investigating collaboration among conflicting
views (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006[1991]; Wilkinson 1997). The notion of experimental
regress (Collins 1981, 1985) may be adapted to explore how regulations construct their subject,
i.e., regulated entities. When regulated entities do not change into the subjects that regulators
intend them to be, who adapts—the regulators or the regulated entity? And in what ways?

82

Alternative and Conventional Food Networks. The idea that exogenous interactions figure in
the enactment of phenomena may contribute to research on the relationship between
conventional and alternative food networks (e.g., Ilbery and Maye 2005; Sonnino and Marsden
2006; Vittersø et al. 2005). It may help problematize and improve the idea of “alternative.”
Alternative food networks that arise from, but oppose, conventional networks have an
unavoidably oxymoronic character. This character is in some respects similar to that of
artisanship, which is also defined in opposition to the contemporary, industrial, regulated context
that it cannot escape. The conceptual perspective developed in this chapter allows exogenous
interactions a formative role in enacting phenomena and does not conflate difference with
juxtaposition.

82

I thank Jason Delborne for suggesting the notion of experimental regress and offering this
perspective.
136

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IN CONCLUSION
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This section summarizes the main points and arguments of this dissertation and
recapitulates recommendations for policy, practice, and further research. An Appendix
summarizes outreach documents and presentations that have promoted these recommendations.

I.

SUMMARY
Artisan food

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is “hot.” A quick scan of restaurant menus, grocery store aisles, and the

popular food press confirms burgeoning availability of and enthusiasm for products that are
handmade and that invoke “tradition,” “authenticity,” and other values. Yet current debates on
the food safety regulation of small-scale and localized production demonstrate the difficulty of
determining a regulatory response to this agrifood production trend. Conventional wisdom has it
that food safety regulations impede artisanship and other alternative agrifood initiatives. Food
safety inspectors and artisan food processors seem to pursue conflicting interests and to move in
separate worlds.
This dissertation investigated artisan food processing, food safety regulation, and the
relationship between them. Chapter 1 presented the method developed to address this problem. It
drew upon science and technology studies (STS), primarily actor-network theory (ANT), as a
conceptual source in the construction of an exploratory ethnographic study. In Chapters 2 and 3,
two perspectives—economic theories of regulation and STS, respectively—were used to analyze
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Artisan processing has been defined here as processing conducted at a small or medium scale
in which producers emphasize manual production techniques and are involved at each step of the
process. It involves batch rather than continuous production and allows for variability in products
and processes (American Cheese Society 2011; Blundell 2002; Bread Bakers Guild of America
2013; de Roest and Menghi 2000; Paxson 2011).
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the findings. Viewed through the former perspective, the findings showed that interests served by
regulations can be complementary and, in fact, synergistic. That is, contrary to economic theories
of regulation and popular views, one party’s gain by regulation is not necessarily another’s loss.
Viewed through the latter perspective, STS, the findings showed potential for coherence between
artisanship and regulation rather than the inevitability of collision. The boundary between
artisanship and regulation, two erstwhile distinct phenomena, was shown to be fluid and
negotiated during food safety inspections. Observation of the interplay between artisanship and
regulation revealed that commonly assumed distinctions between the two phenomena blur.
More detail on these chapters follows here.
Methodology. Chapter 1 described the methodology that I developed for this study. The
concepts of endogenous and exogenous interaction were introduced in order to consider the ways
in which phenomena, such as food safety regulation and artisan food processing, are enacted.
Endogenous interaction refers to the interactions among humans and non-humans that enact
specific phenomena. Exogenous interaction refers to interactions between different phenomena.
Fieldwork was ethnographic. It consisted of semi-structured interviews with bread,
cheese, and jam producers and state food safety inspectors, and observations of bread and cheese
production and food safety inspections. Data collection was guided by the methodological
concepts of non-humans, logics, and difficulties. During the implementation of the methodology,
attention to non-humans unexpectedly foregrounded the importance of interpersonal rapport in
artisan-inspector interactions. It also unexpectedly foregrounded artisans’ use of industrial
technologies and their concerns with contemporary notions of food safety, issues that were
elaborated in Chapter 3. Attention to difficulties helped make visible microorganisms and other

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non-human actors that are critical to the interaction between artisanship and regulation but that
may otherwise be overlooked.
The idea of exogenous interaction also highlighted reflexive dimensions of ethnography.
It drew attention to interactions between research participants, on one hand, and my study and
me, on the other. Attention to logics illuminated the effect that my own perspective had on my
interactions with participants and on my findings.
Interests. Debate on appropriate policy responses to the growing popularity of artisanship
is impeded by conflicting assumptions about the interests that regulations serve and do not serve.
Advocates of different positions variously invoke the interests of the public and of private
businesses. Normative views are implied in these positions: the public interest is to be protected;
regulations should not serve private business interests; yet regulations should do more to help
smaller business interests than they currently do.
Chapter 2 positioned this debate within several economic theories of regulation and
offered an alternative way of thinking about the interests that regulations serve. These theories
have helped generate a narrative of “winners and losers” by juxtaposing the interests of different
actors to explain the motivations behind regulations and to frame regulatory impacts. Chapter 2
considered three primary questions: Whose interests does the regulatory process serve? In what
ways? According to whom?
Economic perspectives on regulation were reviewed and problematized. The notions of
public and private interests were examined, respectively, as the motivations behind regulations.
Also considered was an institutional economics perspective, which approaches interests as

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reciprocal and interdependent and problematizes distinctions between “public” and “private”
interests.
The chapter argued that interests are not only interdependent but complementary and can
in fact be synergistic. It reviewed historical and contemporary evidence of overlap and synergy
among the interests affected by regulation. The argument was also supported in the study’s
findings. The study’s methodological focus on inspections revealed a more complex interplay of
interests than has emerged in other studies focusing on formal requirements or rulemaking.
Artisans described ways in which regulations and inspectors served artisan interests—by
providing technical assistance, backing artisans up in improving the practices of processing staff,
and sharing ideas used by other artisans. It found that inspectors, for their own part, took pride in
seeing these businesses succeed, that the relationships they built with small and medium
producers made the time-consuming nature of these inspections worthwhile, and that they
enjoyed learning about a variety of production styles. Artisans and inspectors both saw
themselves as accountable to food consumers. Most of the artisans saw inspectors as fulfilling a
necessary duty in protecting the public.
When asked whether they would change any regulatory requirements if they could, most
artisans in this study indicated that requirements had not prevented them from doing what they
wanted to do. Yet artisans and inspectors also described burdens. Some artisans indicated that the
regulatory process impeded the use of artisan techniques, imposed costs that they considered
unreasonable, and required measures that they considered unnecessary. Inspectors described the
considerable time required for inspections of artisan facilities, such as through providing
technical assistance beyond regulatory matters. They also described the disappointment they

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experienced when they had invested time helping food entrepreneurs launch businesses only to
close soon thereafter.
The interpersonal dynamic between artisans and inspectors affected the ways in which
interests were or were not served during regulatory processes.
Fluid and Negotiated Boundaries between Phenomena. Chapter 3, like Chapter 2, argued that
there is more convergence and complementarity between artisanship and food safety regulation
than one may assume. Chapter 3 drew upon the STS methodology presented in Chapter 1 as the
framework for analyzing the intersection between the two phenomena. When regulation and
artisanship were observed in practice, neither phenomenon hewed to popular stereotypes.
Artisans made use of non-human objects that their supporters might dismiss as industrial, and
some of them followed—at their own initiative—regimented procedures suggestive of operations
engineering. Food safety inspectors—the putative foot soldiers of industrial food—carried out
their work in a manner that might be lauded as artisan.
The boundaries of these phenomena proved to be more fluid than they appeared. The
human and non-human actors involved in any given phenomenon also play roles in enacting
other phenomena. These are exogenous interactions, in which different phenomena shape each
other. Artisanship is among the phenomena that shape regulatory practice, and regulations are
among the phenomena that shape artisan practice.
The food safety inspections observed in this study created boundary spaces, shared by
artisanship and regulation, in which artisans and inspectors negotiated points of coherence and
divergence between the two phenomena. Boundaries were rendered fluid by the multiple
identities that human and non-human actors assumed and by the multiple logics that humans
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applied. That is, inspectors acted as law enforcers and consultants. Artisans acted as processors
and marketers. Both sets of actors might also have children, pursue hobbies, and be involved in
community life. Hence their possibilities for finding common ground were rich. Inspectors and
artisans had recourse to a variety of justifications for what they did, and for what they understood
the other as doing.
Whether artisanship and regulation cohered or diverged was negotiated in the boundary
space formed during food safety inspections. When they cohered, regulations enabled artisans to
pursue their own styles of production, and inspectors obtained compliance. When they diverged,
artisans were compelled to produce in ways that conflicted with their principles or practice, and
inspectors failed to obtain compliance. This study provided evidence of both coherence and
divergence.

II.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE
Much policymaking to accommodate and encourage artisans and other smaller agrifood

producers has focused on the written substance of laws and regulations. This study points to the
potential of food safety inspections for improving the regulatory process for these producers.
Recommended Inspector Approaches. Inspectors and artisans in this study identified
approaches that improve the regulatory process for artisans and in many cases for inspectors as
well. These include:
•

Work to understand how processors do things, and do not be afraid to ask questions. Do
not rush an inspection.

•

Engage with processors as people, on a human level.

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•

Work toward compliance, improving things gradually over time. Collaborate with
processors in doing so. Address basic food safety concerns first, and then proceed to
other concerns.

•

Explain how to correct any violations, or find the information needed in order to correct a
problem. Explaining why is important, so that the processor understands.
Approaches to avoid include: sounding argumentative or blaming; bearing grudges;

taking things personally or emotionally; nitpicking or overwhelming the processor; telling
processors that they are doing things wrong.
Inspector Training. Inspectors should become more familiar with artisan and other smaller
processing facilities. Training should prepare them for equipment, approaches, and other
characteristics unique to smaller facilities; questions that smaller processors commonly pose;
practicalities of setting up a smaller facility; and common problem areas. Experience working
with other inspectors who are responsible for smaller facilities is also advisable. The inspectors
who had participated in MSU’s artisan cheesemaking course indicated that it improved their
understanding of farmstead and artisan cheesemakers.
Inspectors in this study emphasized the importance of “people skills” and of the time and
experience that it takes to develop these skills. They indicated a need for training on day-to-day
communication, for example identifying personality types and learning to work with different
types of people; resolving conflicts; and deescalating tense situations.
Effective Artisan Practices. Artisans and inspectors identified ways in which artisans and
other smaller processors may improve their experience of the regulatory process. They
recommended that processors see inspectors as resources and allies, be frank with their
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inspectors, and remain patient and persistent when educating their inspectors about their
operations.
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. At this writing, the Preventive Controls Rule of the
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) has not been finalized, and its eventual impact on
the production and inspection processes described in this dissertation is unknown. Michigan law
adopts federal food safety regulations by incorporation. Current regulations that govern the
artisans participating in this study, such as 21 CFR §110, allow inspectors discretion in
determining how processors can meet regulations. It is hoped that the new law preserves this
discretionary flexibility. It is also hoped that any new requirements for written procedures and
recordkeeping preserve the potential for productive interaction between inspectors and artisans
during the inspection process.

III.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Like all research documents, this dissertation represents a snapshot of the state of the

study’s analysis at the time of writing. It has pursued and developed some issues at the expense
of others. This section identifies methodological considerations and suggests further research.
A.

Methodological Considerations
Participant Observation. Participant observation would both contribute to and detract from

similar research. Incorporating participant observation into this study would have enriched both
the findings and the role of the researcher as exogenous actor. Yet recording data by hand was
necessary (see Chapter 1, Appendix A, page 35), and participant observation would have made
this difficult. Participant observation would also require recruiting artisans willing to train and
oversee the researcher as a processing assistant.
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Selection Bias. Artisans and inspectors participated voluntarily in the study, introducing a
selection bias. The study was exploratory, and empirical data necessarily to form a basis for
selection were unavailable. My consequent cooperative relationships with participants permitted
me a degree of access to food safety inspections that strengthened the study and helped generate
elements of an agenda for further research.
Additional analysis (should these data be analyzed further) may reveal implications of
this bias and of my interactions with participants. Approaches would include triangulation of the
data obtained through the different methods used in the study—interviews, observations, and
focus groups—and cross-case comparisons (Yin 2014). Any further research may be broadened
to include a wider, more systematic, and less voluntary selection of participants.

B.

Further Research
Questions of Power and Social Justice. This research aimed to bracket the questions of

power and social justice common in other discussions of regulation and smaller producers. My
decision not to assume that inspectors exercised (undue) authority over artisans stemmed from a
concern for methodological justice. The methodology generated new insights into interactions
between artisans and inspectors exactly because these interactions involved more than power
asymmetries. Had inspections been more contentious, or differences between artisans and
inspectors more problematic, the methodological neutrality that this study strove to maintain may
have been more difficult.
The dissertation focused on symmetrical interactions of artisans and inspectors in order to
correct a deficit of research in this area. It focused on complementarity of interests and on the
ways in which artisan and regulatory practice shaped each other, partly because these findings
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were unexpected. Yet the concerns about power disparities among small processors and
regulators that instigated the research warrant further consideration, both conceptually and
empirically. Ultimately, as artisans and inspectors agreed, inspectors have more power. STS
researchers have developed a rich vocabulary for conceptualizing the ways in which different
actors and different versions of phenomena may achieve balance and avoid (or at least manage)
collision. Further research may apply such concepts as translation, alignment, distribution, and
inclusion, and principal-agent theory, to investigate the negotiation of power in exogenous
interactions. Convention theory also provides a framework for investigating collaboration among
conflicting views (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006[1991]; Wilkinson 1997). The notion of
experimental regress (Collins 1981, 1985) may be adapted to explore how regulations construct
their subject, i.e., regulated entities. When regulated entities do not change into the subjects that
regulators intend them to be, who adapts—the regulators or the regulated entity? And in what
ways?

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Alternative and Conventional Food Networks. The study may provide conceptual tools for
further research on “alternative” food initiatives. The idea that phenomena interact with and
shape each other, even when they are very different from each other, may help problematize and
improve the idea of alternative and contribute to research on the relationship between
conventional and alternative food networks (Ilbery and Maye 2005; Sonnino and Marsden 2006;
Vittersø et al. 2005). Alternative food networks that arise from, but oppose, conventional
networks have an unavoidably oxymoronic character. This character is in some respects similar

84

As mentioned above, I credit Jason Delborne with suggesting the notion of experimental
regress and offering this perspective.
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to that of artisanship, which is also defined in opposition to the contemporary, industrial,
regulated context that it cannot escape.
Regulatory Enforcement. The findings suggest avenues of further research on the
enforcement of food safety regulations. First are the related questions of how food safety
agencies differ in culture and enforcement approach and how agency cultures affect enforcement
approaches. Second is that of how inspector age and years of experience impact inspector styles.
Artisans and inspectors both spoke of the positive difference that greater age and experience
made in inspectors. Third is the extent to which the rapport between an inspector and a small or
medium producer predicts regulatory compliance. This study suggests that this rapport makes at
least as a great a difference for compliance as does the producer’s knowledge of regulatory
requirements. Fourth is the economic impact of inspection practices and of the inspectorprocessor relationship. This study suggests that positive inspector-processor relationships help
improve artisan operations and may increase business viability.

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APPENDIX

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APPENDIX: OUTREACH PRESENTATIONS AND ARTICLES
I.

OUTREACH TO POPULAR AUDIENCES
Buckley, Jenifer. 2013. “MDARD’s interaction with artisan food and dairy processors.”
Invited presentation, Annual Training Conference, Michigan Department of Agriculture
and Rural Development Food and Dairy Division, Roscommon, Mich. (June).
The following three panel sessions brought together Michigan Department of Agriculture
and Rural Development inspection staff (Giles-Austin, Robinson, Settimo, and
Sorensen), small food processors (Brown, Kates, and Spagnuolo), and resource providers
(Birbeck and Coggon). Panelists spoke to producer audiences about the licensing and
inspection process, the processor-inspector rapport, and resources available to producers.
•

Buckley, Jenifer (Coordinator), with Pearl Brown, Laurie Sorensen, Sue Spagnuolo,
and Gordon Robinson. 2013. “Working with your food safety inspector: A webinar
for Michigan’s small food processors.” Panel presentation. Online and at Michigan
State University, East Lansing, Mich. (May). https://www.msu.edu/~jbuckley/events/.
Last accessed September 22, 2013.

•

Buckley, Jenifer (Coordinator), with Sue Spagnuolo, Lindsey Giles-Austin, Marcy
Bishop Kates, Ken Settimo, and Matt Birbeck. 2013. “Small-scale food processing
and food safety regulations: Resources and guidelines for processors.” Panel
presentation. Agriculture and Natural Resources Week, Michigan State University,
East Lansing, Mich. (March).

•

Coggon, Garrett and Jenifer Buckley (Co-Coordinators), with Pearl Brown and Laurie
Sorensen. 2013. “Guidelines for meeting food safety requirements, from farm
production to value-added processing.” Panel presentation. Northern Michigan Small
Farm Conference, Grayling, Mich. (January).

Buckley, Jenifer. 2013. “Artisan food processors see food safety inspectors as resources.”
Michigan Good Food Newsletter 16:1–2.
http://www.michiganfood.org/assets/goodfood/docs/MichGoodFood_Newsletter_Jan_20
13.pdf (last accessed September 22, 2013).
II.

OUTREACH TO ACADEMIC AUDIENCES
Buckley, Jenifer. 2013. “Can food safety regulations serve the interests of artisan
processors? A study of inspector-artisan interactions in Michigan.” Selected paper,
Annual Meetings of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and the
Association for the Study of Food and Society, East Lansing, Mich. (June).
Buckley, Jenifer. 2013. “Food safety regulation, artisan processing, and policy challenges
in a growing agrifood sector: A study of inspector-artisan interactions in Michigan.”

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Selected paper, Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Los Angeles
(April).
Buckley, Jenifer. 2013. “Methodological challenges and surprises in qualitative research:
Stay calm, go with the flow, have fun.” Selected paper, MSU Department of CARRS
Graduate Symposium (March).
Buckley, Jenifer. 2012. “Food safety inspections of artisan food processors in Michigan:
The intersection of two social phenomena.” Selected paper, Michigan Sociological
Association Annual Meeting, Grand Rapids, Mich. (October).
•

A similar selected paper was presented at the 2012 MSU Department of CARRS
Graduate Symposium (March).

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