Job crafting has been established as a bottom-up work design instrument for promoting health and well-being in the workplace. In recent years, the concepts of job crafting have been applied to the university student context, proving to be positively related to student well-being. Building on person-centered analyses from the employment context, we assessed approach study crafting strategy combinations and the relationships to students’ exhaustion, study engagement, and general well-being. Data from 2,882 German university students were examined, collected online during the (...) summer term in 2020. Using latent profile analysis, we found five distinct crafting groups, which showed discriminate validity with regard to emotional exhaustion, engagement, and well-being. The results underscore the positive role of study crafting for students’ health and well-being. They further indicate a less important role of increasing social resources for emotional exhaustion when combined with a moderate increase in structural resources and a moderate increase in challenging demands. Our findings imply that interventions to promote study crafting should be considered to promote student health and well-being. (shrink)

Social standards have become important tools in corporate governance. They are often presented as voluntary initiatives in CSR and are generally based on the principle of multi-stakeholder collaboration as a means to gain legitimacy. Yet, based on a case study of a company in the textile industry, the paper shows that not all CSR standards are equally valued and that the adoption of particular CSR standards can be the result of external constraints on managerial discretion, e.g. emerging from business partners (...) and activist groups. (shrink)

Complex problem solving can be interpreted as the number of psychological mechanisms that allow us to reach our targets in difficult situations, that can be classified as complex, dynamic, non-transparent, interconnected, and multilayered, and also polytelic. The previous results demonstrated associations between the personality dimensions neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion and problem-solving performance. However, there are no studies dealing with personality disorders in connection with CPS skills. Therefore, the current study examines a clinical sample consisting of people with personality and/or depressive (...) disorders. As we have data for all the potential personality disorders and also data from each patient regarding to potential depression, we meet the whole range from healthy to impaired for each personality disorder and for depression. We make use of a unique operationalization: CPS was surveyed in a simulation game, making use of the microworld approach. This study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that personality traits are related to CPS performance. Results show that schizotypal, histrionic, dependent, and depressive persons are less likely to successfully solve problems, while persons having the additional behavioral characteristics of resilience, action orientation, and motivation for creation are more likely to successfully solve complex problems. (shrink)

Prolonging working hours and presenteeism have been conceptualized as self-endangering coping behaviors in employees, which are related to health impairment. Drawing upon the self-regulation of behavior model, the goal achievement process, and Warr's vitamin model, we examined the antecedents and moderation effects regarding quantitative demands, autonomy, emotion regulation, and self-motivation competence of university students' self-endangering coping behaviors. Results from a cross-sectional survey of 3,546 German university students indicate that quantitative demands are positively related and autonomy has a u-shape connection with (...) self-endangering coping. Emotion regulation was shown to be a protective factor for prolonging working hours. Moreover, self-motivation moderated the relationship between quantitative demands and prolonging of working hours, but not in the assumed direction. Self-motivation showed a systematic positive relationship with prolonging of working hours, but no relationship with presenteeism. Autonomy moderated the relationship of quantitative demands with both self-endangering behaviors. We found no moderating effects for emotion regulation of quantitative demands or autonomy and self-endangering behaviors. Besides further practical implications, the results suggest that lecturers should design their courses accordingly with less time pressure and university students should be trained in the use of autonomy. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

Dans le domaine de l’éducation, le partenariat recherche-pratique consiste en l’établissement d’une collaboration fréquente et à long terme entre des praticiens et des chercheurs autour d’objectifs conjointement définis. Le but de cet article est de présenter un état des connaissances sur la façon dont un tel partenariat émerge et se conçoit, à partir d’une recension d’articles publiés sur cette question entre 2010 et 2020. La recension a été articulée selon trois niveaux d’analyse : a) individuel ; b) collectif ; et (...) c) administratif, gouvernance et communauté externe. Un des principaux constats mis en lumière concerne l’influence des éléments du niveau individuel, tel que la relation de confiance, sur certains éléments du niveau collectif, dont la composition et l’organisation des équipes de chercheurs et de praticiens. Il ressort de cette étude que la qualité de la relation de confiance entre les praticiens et les chercheurs peut influencer ou moduler les rôles que les uns et les autres joueront au sein de l’équipe, ainsi que leur engagement. Des pistes de recherche sont aussi présentées. (shrink)

The article develops a theoretical framework that is capable of integrating the biological foundations of emotions with their cultural and semantic formation.

BackgroundDeciphering the amount of work provided by different co-authors of a scientific paper has been a recurrent problem in science. Despite the myriad of metrics available, the scientific community still largely relies on the position in the list of authors to evaluate contributions, a metric that attributes subjective and unfounded credit to co-authors. We propose an easy to apply, universally comparable and fair metric to measure and report co-authors contribution in the scientific literature. MethodsThe proposed Author Contribution Index (ACI) is (...) based on contribution percentages provided by the authors, preferably at the time of submission. Researchers can use ACI to compare the contributions of different authors, describe the contribution profile of a particular researcher or analyse how contribution changes through time. We provide such an analysis based on contribution percentages provided by 97 scientists from the field of ecology who voluntarily responded to an online anonymous survey.ResultsACI is simple to understand and to implement because it is based solely on percentage contributions and the number of co-authors. It provides a continuous score that reflects the contribution of one author as compared to the average contribution of all other authors. For example, ACI(i) = 3, means that author i contributed three times more than what the other authors contributed on average. Our analysis comprised 836 papers published in 2014-2016 and revealed patterns of ACI values that relate to career advancement.ConclusionThere are many examples of author contribution indices that have been proposed but none has really been adopted by scientific journals. Many of the proposed solutions are either too complicated, not accurate enough or not comparable across articles, authors and disciplines. The author contribution index presented here addresses these three major issues and has the potential to contribute to more transparency in the science literature. If adopted by scientific journals, it could provide job seekers, recruiters and evaluating bodies with a tool to gather information that is essential to them and cannot be easily and accurately obtained otherwise. We also suggest that scientists use the index regardless of whether it is implemented by journals or not. (shrink)

French end-of-life law aims at protecting patients from unreasonable treatments, but has been used to force caregivers to prolong treatments deemed unreasonable. We describe six cases (five intensi...

Ce colloque devenu livre comble une lacune. Alors que le sujet a été labouré pour le xviiie siècle, aucune synthèse n’existait jusque-là sur le mariage dans la littérature du xixe siècle. Or, la rupture avec les Lumières est frappante comme l’attestent, par exemple, les réécritures d’Inès de Castro étudiées par Maurizio Melai. Le thème du « mariage interdit », inspiré par la tragédie d’Houdar de la Motte (1723) mais subverti un siècle plus tard, illustre le passage de l’Ancien Régime aristocr...

L’auteur présente trois témoignages. Le premier montre l’influence que la figure de frère Charles de Jésus a exercée sur lui et sur ceux qui l’ont accompagné en pèlerinage. Le second explique pourquoi, aux yeux de l’auteur, le Père de Foucauld peut être considéré comme un martyr de la foi et de la charité. Le troisième raconte comment, mettant ses pas dans les pas de frère Charles, l’auteur a passé presque deux ans dans un ermitage, sur l’Assekrem, dans le (...) Hoggar. C’est là qu’est née l’intuition fondatrice des Fraternités Monastiques de Jérusalem. (shrink)

This summer, I met Stephan Van Dam, a mapmaker and publisher so well known for his innovative work that twenty‐six of his maps are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. We talked about our work, and he connected bioethics to mapping. “After all, ethics is action,” he said. I've thought about that since because I found it a great description for bioethics and my role in it. Being concerned with how things ought to (...) be requires a map of how they are and where we want to go. As director of public affairs and communications at The Hastings Center, my job is to help put the normative and empirical research of our scholars into action via policy‐makers, journalists, and the public—to place it on the map. (shrink)

Flora Tristan (1803-1844) a été longtemps oubliée, puis partiellement redécouverte au XXe siècle. Le deuxième centenaire de sa naissance nous apporte deux livres fort différents et providentiellement jumeaux. Le premier est la reprise renouvelée, avec de nombreux inédits, d'un ouvrage antérieur publié en 1985 par ENS Éditions. Nous avons ici un grand nombre de lettres adressées par Flora Tristan à des correspondants très divers outre la famille et les relations personnelles. Nommons...

Here is, we think, the point. It doesn't matter for what reason the writer or painter or lover destroys the creation: the real point is that destruction itself, like a gigantic statement. It is, in fact, something of an excitation, a stimulation to further thought: what is this ACTION about?' What do Stéphane Mallarmé, Antonin Artaud, Meret Oppenheim, Asger Jorn, Yoko Ono, Tom Phillips and Martin Arnold have in common? Whereas a wealth of critics have diagnosed contemporary art's preoccupations with (...) madness, depression and self-abuse as well as its tendency to cultivate an (anti- )aesthetics of the negative, the excremental and the abject (say, from the Vienna Action Group to Serrano, McCarthy or Delvoye), much less attention has been paid to how modern and contemporary artists and public have thrived on the destruction, disfiguration and obliteration of work by the artists and/or by that of others. From Artaud's 'terminal' notebooks to the recent upsurge in 'erasure poetics', the history of 'undoing' art deserves to be recounted in a positive mode and rescued from popular narratives of the decline and death of the avant-garde. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue that a political theology of human work can provide the sacramental principle underlying the theology of labor. This principle could complement the foundations of Catholic social teaching, since the sacramental aspects of work have not been made very explicit in the ethical framework of the Church's theology of work. The view of labor as the active participation in God's future is an important aspect of such a theology. In order to serve as a foundation (...) for faith-based labor organizing, I will claim that it needs to be complemented by a sacramental view of labor as art, a labor-aesthetic that undergirds a labor-ethic, in which labor itself becomes a sign and instrument of the way the Church becomes God's work in the world. First, I will sketch an outline of some of the major positions on labor in modern Catholic theology. Then, I will draw on the writings of the British poet and painter David Jones to explore a sacramental view of human work, arguing that a sacramental view of work could support the Church's social criticism of laborer's circumstances. (shrink)

Dans le domaine du placement d’enfants, la loi de 1996 préconisant le maintien de la communauté de vie des frères et sœurs est souvent comprise comme une injonction sine qua non. Cet article se fait l’écho des observations d’une équipe pluridisciplinaire (éducateurs, psychologue, psychanalyste) engagée depuis de longues années dans l’accueil familial qui dévoilent, à travers une analyse à la fois quantitative et clinique, une réalité qui vient nuancer cet impératif. Les auteurs montrent que, dans un certain nombre de cas, (...) le maintien de la communauté de vie de la fratrie contribue à l’entretien de la pathologie des liens familiaux et à l’aliénation du sujet. Pourtant, il est possible d’imaginer des dispositifs où séparation de la fratrie n’est pas synonyme de rupture des liens fraternels. (shrink)

Avant de s'emparer de ce qu'elle sait, ou croit savoir, pour élaborer des théories, l'intelligence, lorsqu'elle s'éveille, est d'abord frappée par des évidences qui s'imposent à elle. A ce moment-là, l'intelligence est saisie, donc elle sort d'elle-même en s'ouvrant à la réalité, et elle en est consciente. Bref, elle tient une vérité. En même temps, ces lumières n'expliquent pas tout ;par conséquent, elles suscitent, tout naturellement, des questions. De là va naître ce que, à la suite de saint Thomas d'Aquin, (...) on a appelé :" la philosophie naturelle de l'esprit humain " qui, seule, peut nous délivrer, définitivement et objectivement, du relativisme et du vide, donc du désespoir. Point de départ de ces réflexions, la découverte de l'être et de sa nécessité dans l'évidence, intellectuelle qu'il y a quelque chose de bon et de beau en face de moi. A partir de là on discerne, certes, l'Erre perfection pure, mais surtout l'immatérialité de la connaissance, sans laquelle l'amour perd toute sa profondeur, et qui est le fondement de notre ressemblance à Dieu. C'est dire assez à quel point la foi suppose cette philosophie. Ces pages veulent s'adresser aux non-spécialistes, tout en essayant de répondre aux exigences de rigueur d'un esprit critique. Exercice difficile, mais à la hauteur de l'enjeu, exprimé de façon saisissante par Dimitri Karamazov :"Je suis fort peu instruit, frère, mais j'ai beaucoup songé à ces choses. Que de mystères accablent l'homme! Pénètre-les et reviens intact. ". (shrink)

Our goal in producing this special issue is to encourage our colleagues to incorporate topics related to LGBT populations into bioethics curricula and scholarship. Bioethics has only rarely examined the ways in which law and medicine have defined, regulated, and often oppressed sexual minorities. This is an error on the part of bioethics. Medicine and law have served in the past as society's enforcement arm toward sexual minorities, in ways that robbed many people of their dignity. We feel that bioethics (...) has an obligation to discuss that history and to help us as a society take responsibility for it.We can address only a small number of topics in this special issue of the Hastings Center Report, and we selected topics we believe will stimulate discourse. Andrew Solomon offers an elegant overview of the challenges that bioethics faces in articulating a solid basis for LGBT rights. Timothy F. Murphy asks whether bioethics still faces issues related to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, given the deletion of homosexuality as a disease and the progress toward same‐sex marriage. Jamie Lindemann Nelson's essay addresses the search for identity for transgender persons and the role of science in that search. Two articles, those by Brendan S. Abel and by Jack Drescher and Jack Pula, take up the complex issue of medical treatment for children who reject their assigned birth gender. Celia B. Fisher and Brian Mustanski address the special challenges of engaging LGBT youth in research, balancing the need for better information about this vulnerable group against the existing restrictions on research involving children. Tia Powell and Edward Stein consider the merits of legal bans on psychotherapies intended to change sexual orientation, particularly in the light of current research on orientation. Mary Beth Foglia and Karen I. Fredricksen‐Goldsen highlight health disparities and resilience among LGBT older adults and then discuss the role of nonconscious bias in perpetuating disparities. Stephan Davis and Nancy Berlinger assess the challenges of access to care and health policy for transgender persons. Edward J. Callahan et al. tackle the ways in which diverse aspects of medicine should change to better incorporate the needs of LGBT patients, including through use of the electronic medical record, education of health professionals, and recruitment efforts for LGBT health professionals. Virginia Ashby Sharpe and Uchenna S. Uchendu describe multifaceted efforts within Veterans Administration facilities to create change for LGBT veterans across the largest integrated health care network in the United States. Lance Wahlert and Autumn Fiester find a mixed record in the use of case studies in teaching about LGBT issues. (shrink)

Sur la couverture des albums parus aux éditions Delcourt, on peut lire « Marcel Proust, À la recherchedu temps perdu, adaptation et illustrations de Stéphane Heuet ». En affichant ainsi son rôle avec modestie,l’adaptateur-illustrateur réussit à faire endosser à Proust la paternité littéraire d’une BD , ce qui n’est pas rien. Comble d’ironie ou de provocation, la Recherche illustrée par Heuet,c’est Tintin au pays des Guermantes. Dans les cases rectangulaires d’un strip standard au graphisme résolument« ligne claire », ceux qui (...) aiment la phrase proustienne en ses méandres, avec sa lecture au lentcours, découvrent une ligne TGV : Un amour de Swann en deux albums de 517 dessins, au lieu des200 pages en Pléiade. Cette alliance contre-nature est dénoncée par certains défenseurs de la littératurequi y voient une dénaturation de l’oeuvre et par des amoureux de la BD d’auteur qui déplorent une BDsans audace graphique. L’objet de cet article est de répondre à ces deux objections.On the cover of an album series published by Delcourt is written “Marcel Proust, À la recherche du tempsperdu, adaptation and illustrations by Stéphane Heuet”. With such an unassuming announcement of his role,the adaptor-illustrator manages to ascribe the literary paternity of a comic strip to Proust himself, which is no mean feat. And as a final irony or provocation, the “Recherche du temps perdu” illustrated by Heuet becomes “Tintin in the Land of the Guermantes”. As they peruse the rectangularframes of a classic comic strip with their “clear line” graphic style, those who enjoy a leisurely ramblethrough Proust’s meandering paragraphs may well find themselves aboard a high-speed train at full throttle:“Un amour de Swann” in two albums and 517 drawings, instead of 200 pages from the publisher Pléiade. Thisunnatural alliance has been denounced by advocates of literature as a travesty of Proust’s work, and bydevotees of authored comic strips as a work devoid of graphic boldness. This article sets out to answer both ofthese objections. (shrink)

Dans ce livre passionnant aux allures d’enquête policière, Laurence Giordano nous mène sur les traces de trois orphelins – Nicolas, Marie et Michel Bryck – qui sans elle seraient restés sans voix et sans histoire, comme la vaste majorité du petit peuple du xixe siècle. C’est avec la découverte d’une lettre de Marie dans un carton concernant les « Orphelins du choléra des épidémies de 1832 et de 1839 » des archives départementales de Paris que l’historienne ouvre ce (...) récit, qui déroge aux règle... (shrink)

Le centième anniversaire de la disparition de Bertha von Suttner, première femme décorée du Prix Nobel de la Paix, a donné lieu cette année à maintes manifestations culturelles et scientifiques, qui toutes soulignent la clairvoyance et la surprenante modernité de l’analyse suttnerienne du discours sur le caractère prétendument inexorable de la guerre. Il a également suscité plusieurs publications, dont la réédition de l’ouvrage qui l’a rendue mondialement célèbre, Die Waffen nieder! (Bas les...

Marie Durand n’est pas très connue en dehors du monde protestant. Elle a passé 38 ans emprisonnée dans la Tour de Constance à Aigues-Mortes parce que son frère était un pasteur clandestin du xviiie siècle. Elle est surtout connue depuis le livre de Benoît en 1884. Mais c’est au début du xxe siècle qu’elle devient une personnification de la résistance pacifique au nom des droits de la conscience et de la tolérance et qu'elle accède à un statut d'héroïne. (...) Cela permet aussi à la Réforme un renouveau moral et spirituel. La référence à Marie Durand s'accentue en 1945 et culmine lors des cérémonies de 1968. Elle symbolise ainsi le protestantisme toujours persécuté, mais luttant de manière non-violente pour maintenir la foi. (shrink)

La vie d’Antoine-Jean Solier, protestant rouergat établi à Marseille comme négociant à la fin du xviiie siècle, a été scandée par l’écriture. Au fil de ses textes autobiographiques se révèle le for privé d’un homme pourtant peu enclin aux confidences. Le fils, le frère, le mari et le père s’expriment sous sa plume au gré des circonstances, esquissant le portrait complexe d’un être à la charnière de deux époques et de deux sensibilités. Porteur d’une tradition familiale construite sur de (...) fortes solidarités, tant professionnelles que confessionnelles, Antoine-Jean appartient aussi à cette génération des Lumières ouverte sur l’individu, dont la relation au divin se détend au profit d’une sensibilité plus humaniste. Ses écrits témoignent ainsi de toute l’ambiguïté de la relation à l’autre, selon le statut, le genre ou la place de chacun au sein de sa famille. (shrink)

Marine Le Pen prise aux mots s’ouvre sur le « mot de trop » susceptible de représenter « l’abîme » séparant le discours de Jean-Marie Le Pen et celui de Marine Le Pen. Prenant comme postulat de départ qu’il y a une stratégie de dédiabolisation dans le discours de Marine Le Pen, Cécile Alduy et Stéphane Wahnich se posent la question si cette stratégie change pour autant le contenu idéologique. La question ainsi posée sous-tend une réponse négative : L’abîme (...) entre les deux discours est-il si gr... (shrink)

La vie d’Antoine-Jean Solier, protestant rouergat établi à Marseille comme négociant à la fin du xviiie siècle, a été scandée par l’écriture. Au fil de ses textes autobiographiques se révèle le for privé d’un homme pourtant peu enclin aux confidences. Le fils, le frère, le mari et le père s’expriment sous sa plume au gré des circonstances, esquissant le portrait complexe d’un être à la charnière de deux époques et de deux sensibilités. Porteur d’une tradition familiale construite sur de (...) fortes solidarités, tant professionnelles que confessionnelles, Antoine-Jean appartient aussi à cette génération des Lumières ouverte sur l’individu, dont la relation au divin se détend au profit d’une sensibilité plus humaniste. Ses écrits témoignent ainsi de toute l’ambiguïté de la relation à l’autre, selon le statut, le genre ou la place de chacun au sein de sa famille. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology reveals two attitudes regarding the classification of phenomena. On the one hand, they are classified by type. On the other, the “banality of saturation” reduces these types topossibleinterpretations, in which case saturation isn’t a qualitative rupture anymore, but a possible hermeneutic attitude to any phenomenon. Hence, there is, in Marion’s phenomenology, a tension between a metaphysical attitude that maintains categorial discontinuities, and a hermeneutic temptation driven by the recovery of quantitative continuities between all phenomena. Yet, Marion does (...) not push this quantitative temptation to its limits; he steps back in front of a specifically saturated phenomenon: the icon. (shrink)

L'évolution de la clinique psychiatrique a mis au centre de ses recherches l'écoute et la parole du patient. Cependant le plus souvent la parole échoit dans les discours et l'écoute se décentre vers la vérification des a priori théo­riques. L'empathie ou les règlements qui incitent le clinicien à mettre le patient au centre de ses préoccupations apportent confort et sécurité mais ratent la rencontre clinique qui échoit dans le relationnel. Une relation n'est pas une rencontre. Le contexte de...

Pour la phénoménologie de Jean-Luc Marion, Descartes est le philosophe ayant achevé la métaphysique. Mais il faut entendre toute la polyphonie de ce terme. D’un côté, il l’a achevée au sens où il l’a parachevée, la portant à son sommet en fixant ses concepts et ses enjeux pour la modernité à venir. De l’autre, il l’a achevée en montrant ses brisures, la rendant caduque par la mise au jour de son dépassement possible selon deux concepts qui déterminent aussi deux moments (...) cartésiens : l’infini puis la chair. Cette ambivalence eu égard à la métaphysique (fixation puis dépassement), résonne dans la phénoménologie de la donation puisqu’elle détermine la mise en place de la distinction entre les phénomènes saturés et les phénomènes de droit commun. Ainsi, Descartes est utilisé comme le philosophe qui fixe les frontières, non seulement entre philosophie et métaphysique, mais aussi celles qui passent au cœur même de la phénoménologie. Pourtant, à de nombreuses reprises, Marion montre que cette fixation des frontières n’est pas aussi aisée à opérer qu’il n’y paraît, et qu’il y a un brouillage essentiel et originaire de celles-là. Pour la phénoménologie de la donation, Descartes est donc à la fois un repoussoir et un aimant, ce qu’il faut dépasser et ce à partir de quoi on le dépasse, ce qui disparaît dans la mort de la métaphysique, mais aussi ce qui s’attarde dans ce qui lui survit. (shrink)

Local sustainable food systems have captured the popular imagination as a progressive, if not radical, pillar of a sustainable food future. Yet these grassroots innovations are embedded in a dominant food regime that reflects productivist, industrial, and neoliberal policies and institutions. Understanding the relationship between these emerging grassroots efforts and the dominant food regime is of central importance in any transition to a more sustainable food system. In this study, we examine the encounters of direct farm marketers with food safety (...) regulations and other government policies and the role of this interface in shaping the potential of local food in a wider transition to sustainable agri-food systems. This mixed methods research involved interview and survey data with farmers and ranchers in both the USA and Canada and an in-depth case study in the province of Manitoba. We identified four distinct types of interactions between government and farmers: containing, coopting, contesting, and collaborating. The inconsistent enforcement of food safety regulations is found to contain progressive efforts to change food systems. While government support programs for local food were helpful in some regards, they were often considered to be inadequate or inappropriate and thus served to coopt discourse and practice by primarily supporting initiatives that conform to more mainstream approaches. Farmers and other grassroots actors contested these food safety regulations and inadequate government support programs through both individual and collective action. Finally, farmers found ways to collaborate with governments to work towards mutually defined solutions. While containing and coopting reflect technologies of governmentality that reinforce the status quo, both collaborating and contesting reflect opportunities to affect or even transform the dominant regime by engaging in alternative economic activities as part of the ‘politics of possibility’. Developing a better understanding of the nature of these interactions will help grassroots movements to create effective strategies for achieving more sustainable and just food systems. (shrink)

Local sustainable food systems have captured the popular imagination as a progressive, if not radical, pillar of a sustainable food future. Yet these grassroots innovations are embedded in a dominant food regime that reflects productivist, industrial, and neoliberal policies and institutions. Understanding the relationship between these emerging grassroots efforts and the dominant food regime is of central importance in any transition to a more sustainable food system. In this study, we examine the encounters of direct farm marketers with food safety (...) regulations and other government policies and the role of this interface in shaping the potential of local food in a wider transition to sustainable agri-food systems. This mixed methods research involved interview and survey data with farmers and ranchers in both the USA and Canada and an in-depth case study in the province of Manitoba. We identified four distinct types of interactions between government and farmers: containing, coopting, contesting, and collaborating. The inconsistent enforcement of food safety regulations is found to contain progressive efforts to change food systems. While government support programs for local food were helpful in some regards, they were often considered to be inadequate or inappropriate and thus served to coopt discourse and practice by primarily supporting initiatives that conform to more mainstream approaches. Farmers and other grassroots actors contested these food safety regulations and inadequate government support programs through both individual and collective action. Finally, farmers found ways to collaborate with governments to work towards mutually defined solutions. While containing and coopting reflect technologies of governmentality that reinforce the status quo, both collaborating and contesting reflect opportunities to affect or even transform the dominant regime by engaging in alternative economic activities as part of the ‘politics of possibility’. Developing a better understanding of the nature of these interactions will help grassroots movements to create effective strategies for achieving more sustainable and just food systems. (shrink)