Discourse analysis of local and global food supply chains in Catalonia : a case study for the GLAMUR project

Abstract

The study about food supply chains assumes the responsibility to take in account all different visions about food systems, argued by four distinguish spheres: Market, Public, Policy and for ultimate, the Scientific sphere. Each of those spheres embodies various discourses representing food chains’ visions, influenced by their role in the society, their shared values and their socio-economic context, (…). The present study dares to capture perceptions about social, economic and environmental performance of local and global food supply chains through a discourse analysis. The inquiry is realized by two complementary softwares (Atlas.ti & Alceste), that permits the comparison of actors’ perceptions about dominant and alternative food chain models. It finally appears that majority of food systems’ actors have a positive vision about the social and environmental aspects of performance of local food supply chain, than the global food system. In relation to the economic aspect, perceptions of performance are shared into two opposite points of view: market sphere perceived it as positive due to its positioning statement that permits to take advantage of the effects of global competition; in contrary, public sphere seems to have an optimistic point of view concerning alternative models of production and commercialization, mainly due to the increment of opportunities for farmers in terms of access to the market and equity of distribution of profit.