1. S TANDARDS AND THE RE - PROBLEMATIZATION OF TERRITORY S USTAINABLE STANDARDS IN E UROPEAN FARMED FISH MARKETS Caitríona Carter, Irstea, Bordeaux

2. I NTRODUCTION This presentation develops a line of argumentation Namely that one way to renew our analysis of standards is to re-problematize their relation to territory This requires that scholarship re-thinks its assumptions about these relations I illustrate this argument through drawing on empirical research into the development of standards for the selling of farmed fish in European markets (ANR funded project, « Le Gouvernement Européen des Industries », 2009-2013: Volet « Le Gouvernement Européen de l’Aquaculture », Carter, C. & Cazals, C., ADBX, Irstea, Bdx: Jullien & Smith, Eds 2014 forthcoming)

3. I. W HY R E - THINK T ERRITORY ? Current debates within political science point to the importance of controlling for evolving economic and political interdependencies in political analysis This applies also to political analysis of standardization Whereas interdependence in the past referred to interactions and exchange between ‘states’, today’s form is one of interdependence within and across states In short, interdependence not only  constructs new territories and actors (e.g. the European Union; the European Commission)  it re-constructs old territories and actors anew (e.g. UK devolution & Scotland; the Scottish Government)

4. W HY R E - THINK T ERRITORY ? In response to these reflections, scholars have begun to re-conceptualize territory They have 1. De-linked the word ‘territory’ from the word ‘local’ (Smith, 2008) 2. Conceptualized its other forms and usages (Saliou, 2010; Kernalegenn, 2010) 3. Conceptualized territory as a power resource, as well as a scale of action (Carter & Smith, 2008,2009; Carter, 2014)

5. W HY R E - THINK T ERRITORY ? These arguments in favour of re-problematizing territory are even more important because for some scholars interdependence results in de- territorialization They ‘ write territory out ’ of their analysis (Morgan, 2007: 1247) The world is so connected that e.g., there is ‘no definable regional territory to rule over’ (Amin, 2004: 34, 36). I disagree.

6. W HY R E - THINK T ERRITORY ? Have demonstrated that in actor regulatory & governing practices of problematization, instrumentation and legitimation territory has been used as a political resource by actors in public policy making to define the frontiers of public action determine actor eligibility to participate in decision taking legitimate compromises reached

7. W HY R E - THINK T ERRITORY ? Here, I want to argue that standards too link to territory in multiple ways which require greater attention This is recognized in the literature on standardization when it talks about transnational private regulation (e.g., Djama et al. 2011 ; Ponte et al. 2011; Cafaggi 2010; Havinga 2006) But want to go further and argue more precisely that standardization 1) Simultaneously socially constructs territory 2) Can follow from direct or indirect assignment of authority from public representatives of transnational and/or regional territories 3) Has a multi-spatial quality

8. II. 1 S IMULTANEOUS S OCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE STANDARD AND A TERRITORY Potential polity-building properties of standards are under-analyzed compared with market-building ones Yet, standards do build territory when actors, for example, set sustainable standards in European salmon markets, these not only give social meaning to the product, but also to Europe: setting a standard to judge a sustainable EU salmon begs all sorts of questions not only about what sustainable is but also about what the EU is or might be Or, in labeling a sustainable product ‘Aquitaine trout’, trout farmers not only raise the profile of the territory of Aquitaine, but critically define it as a collective place where environmental protection of water quality and river beds is controlled Another example is the European Commission’s 2009 strategy on aquaculture, whereby sustainable EU aquacultural products are described as ‘high value products based on their environmental performance, high health standards and traceability’ (Commission 2009b, p4). 1. Sustainable European aquaculture upheld by contrast to other territories’ approaches (e.g., China) 2. Its realisation is dependent on the setting of private standards

9. S IMULTANEOUS S OCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE STANDARD AND A TERRITORY To argue thus we are therefore defining standardisation  as a space of action whereby actors are in a constant process of communication through which they negotiate the identities and interests which are the object of (sustainable) sectoral politics  and at the same time they are negotiating the identity and interest of a territory Connects with the idea of standards as ‘performative’ (Loconto, Busch 2010) – here territorially Representations of territory are material to the representation of sectoral interests in politics, and vice- versa (Carter and Smith 2008).

10. S IMULTANEOUS S OCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE STANDARD AND A TERRITORY This is particularly important for political analysis of the EU which associates this territory with a failed Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) (see various contributions to Jordan & Adelle, 2013) This literature too ignores the potential polity-building properties of standards – e.g., the link is not made between their content and the implementation of the EU’s SDS – they are not considered connected to the building of sustainable Europe, which is located rather in the action of EU public actors whose interactions take place in EU public arenas But, if we see standardisation as polity-building, we find out many more things about European sustainable development. We find for fish farming that it is: omnipresent, not absent; co-produced and unfinished, not natural and failed; the result of action, not non-action; its value choices de-politicized, not ‘a-political’ and ‘technical’ (Carter 2015 forthcoming)

11. II. 2 F ROM STATE - MARKET RELATIONS TO TERRITORY - MARKET RELATIONS Wider debates over causes of enhanced private government often remain focused on state-market relations and rarely on other territory-market ones, e.g., EU -market ones or region -market ones, and this even in discussions of globalization and standards The territory of the state is often implicitly reified in analysis of standards – as unified and centralized - scholarship seems at times to remain trapped in a form of methodological nationalism But, first, states are transforming entities - public authority and power is both centralized upwards (in Europe, with the creation of the EU) and downwards (with an increase in political de- centralisation projects, such as devolution in the UK, federalisation in Belgium etc.) Indeed, standards are often set following indirect assignments of authority  from the EU to the market place ( examples, EU trade & competiveness policies )  from a region to the market place ( examples, Scottish strategy ‘A Fresh Start’ )  at times without involvement of ‘state’ actors or state-wide public policy programmes at all (when ‘public government’ is represented by European Commission or Scottish officials, for example, as is the case for aquaculture)

12. F ROM STATE - MARKET RELATIONS TO TERRITORY - MARKET RELATIONS Second, staying at the global or international level of analysis to explain shifting power relations can be a limiting exercise (and can serve to protect the reification of the state) To prevent research from falling into the ‘statist’ trap, we argue for the necessity to both localize and particularize the inquiry on standardization (Carter, 2014 forthcoming) For example, we contend that the assignment of the authority to govern from the public to the private will be specific to each case and will happen in the course of problematization and instrumentation  Rather than making assumptions about territory - research should start out by asking, for example,  ‘which actors defined the problem for which standardisation is seen as the solution’?  ‘at which scale were they acting?’  ‘what territorial resources were mobilized’? Examples in sustainable salmon standards

13. II. 3 T HE MULTI - SPATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION Standardization results in multiple spaces of action at different scales of territory e.g. the Aquaculture Stewardship Council Certificate, set in global partnerships between e-NGOs and private collective actors along the supply chain visible processes at macro scales e.g. in negotiations led by inter- professional bodies representing a ‘filière’ (trout) over ‘cahiers de charges’ with a supermarket – i.e., criteria for buying and selling quality trout in the shadows at meso scales e.g. in local business partnerships between one supermarket, one fish producer and one feed manufacturer; written in in-house rating systems as part of sustainable sourcing policies invisible processes at micro scales

14. T HE MULTI - SPATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION There is consequently a politics of both scale and place to be taken into account in our analysis Concerning a politics of scale, this is linked to debates in the literature on parallelism, complexity, multi-stakeholder practices, multiple organisational fields  different scales of certification, evaluation and audit  different types of standards operating at different scales can be mutually dependent on one another or can enter into conflict over claims to legitimacy and hierarchies of sustainability On complementarity, e.g., when micro scale business-to- business sustainable standards formalised in supply and demand contracts and/or partnerships with e-NGOs set local criteria for some aspects of production; rely on global certification for sourcing of some products; set their own criteria for sourcing of other products (see also Cafaggi 2010)

15. T HE MULTI - SPATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION Concerning a politics of place and sustainability standards, this is linked to value arguments in the literature on whether sustainability or organic standardisation results in the institutionalization of particular forms of ecological modernisation (i.e., constructions of nature, states, markets, society ) Standardisation often equated with bio-economic interpretations of ecological modernisation global, national or regional scale; de-coupled from local environmental conditions; economic growth; corporate control; supply chain logistics; energy, waste, eco-efficiency; eco-industrial sites (Marsden, 2014) Words & bio- economy regional & local scales; embedded in local environmental conditions; small-scale economy; citizens and consumer networks; value capture; ecological conditions and natural growth processes; rural landscapes (Marsden, 2014). Words & eco- economy

16. T HE MULTI -S PATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION To engage with these debates, we can compare, e.g., macro versus micro standardisation practices On sustainable salmon standards in Scotland/EU market  Standardisation taking place on a European scale, but is also linked in place and space to local political debates (within the Scottish political programme for aquaculture, ‘A Fresh Start’)  Actors compared their practices with those of the global salmon dialogue for standard setting at an international scale to agree an ‘Aquaculture Stewardship Council’ certificate

17. T HE MULTI -S PATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION For some actors engaged in ‘European/Scottish’ spaces of standardisation, the ASC was far less connected to local conditions than their own reglementary action: ‘But I also noticed at the time that it was very much Americas; it was very focused on non-European aquaculture’ (salmon producer representative). ‘Two or three things that are fundamental problems for us in Scotland were right up writ large on the table at that meeting – and they still haven’t gone away’ (salmon producer representative). Indeed, currently many actors within the European salmon industry in Scotland will continue to rely on their own business contracts, rather than sign up to this global standard, precisely because of this disconnection of its criteria from local conditions: ‘No matter how many things we could put in place to try to mitigate this, or have derogations or to have a process of lead-in to it, it is just so difficult for our industry and the way we actually operate to get onto that standard’ (salmon producer representative).

18. T HE MULTI -S PATIAL QUALITY OF STANDARDIZATION  Controlling for politics of scale and place thus allows us to contribute also to debates on values and contents of standardization (and hence their legitimacy)  This connects to the argument that when standards such as ASC are represented as ‘gold standards’ for sustainability because members of ISEAL, ISEAL has to work to protect this claim (Loconto & Fouilleux 2013)  If we control for territory in terms of connections to ‘place’ and ‘local environmental conditions’ we can provide alternate views on hierarchies of values of sustainability standards

19. III. C ONCLUSIONS  One way to further analysis of standardization and private regulation is to re-problematise its relation to territory  We have proposed three complementary ways to do this: 1) Examine how standardization simultaneously socially constructs territory 2) Localize and particularize the inquiry to grasp (direct & indirect) public assignments of authority to private actors to identify which territory and which market 3) Understanding that standardization has a multi-spatial quality, critically assess the consequences of its politics of scale and place on value choices

20. C ONCLUSIONS  Overall, we stress that only staying at a global level of analysis to explain shifting power relations can be a limiting exercise  Political sociology provides useful tools to capture territory in standardization From this perspective, the social powering of actors in private regulation would be expected to be most observable at three moments of problematization instrumentation legitimation of standardization (Smith, 2013; Loconto & Fouilleux, 2013: 4; Gilbert & Henry, 2012; Svea, 2010; Carter & Smith, 2008; Lascoumes and LeGalès 2007 ; Rochefort & Cobb, 1994)  Controlling for actors’ political usages of territory during these three process, we contend, would enable research to capture newly re-problematized relations of standardization to territory

21. T HANK YOU

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