La qualité des fromages d'Auvergne: une étude des rapports entre l'expertise scientifique et la promotion des Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC)

Author(s)

Mayra Lafoz Bertussi

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2020-12-18

Examining board members

Emília Pietrafesa de Godoi; Benoit de L'Estoile; Sergio Pereira Leite; Frank Poupeau

• Advisor: Afrânio Raul Garcia Júnior; Emília Pietrafesa de Godoi

Abstract

This thesis focuses on a strategy developed for the valorization of agro-food products through the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme. The appellations d’origine contrôlée (AOC), the widespread French system, it is a certification granted to agro-food products based on the notion of terroir, which refers to products that meet a set of features such as geographical, social and historical standards in the manufacturing process, supporting tradition and protection of origin as a strategy of adding value. The introduction of this system beyond the French territory, ensuring recognition of AOC by the European Union and the World Trade Organization, triggered a process of legitimizing labels along with the intensification of production criteria. The internationalization of geographical indications (GIs) supports this research to explain a double reconfiguration; on one hand, it led to an institutional structure rearrangement, responsible for legitimizing production norms never established. On the other hand, institutional restructuring influenced the actors directly involved in the production, i.e., producers of milk and cheese. Considering that this new scenario has generated several disputes concerning the categorization of cheese quality, the object of this study is the social construction of the quality of the AOC cheeses in the French region of Auvergne. Therefore, there are two axes of analysis. The first aims to understand the role of the scientific expertise in the process of legitimizing AOCs since it was observed that there is a network of scientists and professionals working to promote AOCs. The second, it is interested in how these criteria have been received by milk and cheese producers, seeking to understand the social capital of producers who are able or not to integrate their production within this certification model. Through the ethnographic method and a dialogical perspective, this research demonstrates how scientific knowledge can be operated as a way of legitimizing tradition (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/04320-0 - The quality of the PDO cheeses of the Auvergne region: a study of the relation between market and scientific research
• Grantee: Mayra Lafoz Bertussi
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate