As discussed in chapter one, the thesis employs an actor-centred approach to investigate the social processes underpinning agricultural change in the context of the viticulture sector of the Languedoc. Networks have been forw arded as a concept which incorporates social action at the centre of analysis whilst at the same time taking account of the relations between actors acting both locally and 'at-a-distance' (Murdoch & M arsden, 1995). As well as a concept formulated to take account of social action across space, networks m ay also be used as a methodological tool to start to trace the links between actors, to examine how actors relate to each other and the types of relations in which they are engaged (see Pennington & Rydin, 2000; Few, 2002). As a methodological tool, therefore, networks can act as a sorting device which allows one to make some provisional assum ptions about the nature of social relations through the kinds of links
between actors. It is a flatter, non-hierarchical w ay of approaching a
community, so that the nature of social relations emerges through the process of
tracing these relations in situ rather than m aking a priori assum ptions of the roles
and positions of different actor-groups.
In addition to the employment of a netw ork as a methodological tool, the thesis adopts a particular epistemological position which recognises the existence of plural forms of knowledge and different views of the w orld (M urdoch & Clark, 1996; M urdoch 1997). It seeks to privilege the voices of the case study actors
Introduction
and thus local know ledges’, experiences and interpretations of change. U nderpinning this position is the assum ption that w ith greater sensitivity to social and spatial difference, to the existence of competing discourses of rurality and to the m ultiple experiences of change, the material generated from this bottom -up approach may provide different or alternative insights of change from those afforded by meta-narratives. This leads to the employment of a bottom -up approach to elucidate local experiences and subjective accounts of change. Therefore, the narratives of change presented in the empirical chapters represent a straight reporting of the stories of local actors, w ith limited interpretation by the researcher.
These two key methodological positions adopted in the thesis, the use of netw orks and a bottom -up approach, lead to the em ployment of a particular set of qualitative methodologies and approaches to the analysis and interpretation of the material.
^ If we accept that plural forms of knowledge exist, a definition must be provided of ‘local knowledges’. Local knowledges (following Kloppenburg, 1991; Jones, 1995), in this case are derived from people’s personal experiences of change and their everyday interpretations and constructions of the rural. They are thus subjective, there is no ‘single’ knowledge and they are embedded in, and constituted through, the material and social context in which they are generated.
An In-Depth Case Study Approach
Case studies can be viewed as exemplars of ideas, rather than providing an exhaustive analysis of a particular set of circumstances. As such, a case study approach allows a specific sequence of events to be explored in greater depth (Kitchen & Tate, 2000). In keeping w ith an actor-centred approach w hich seeks to follow the actors, to examine their rationales, decisions and strategies, the case study is seen as the most appropriate method because it provides an opportunity to "highlight and analyse the processes by which social actors actually manage their everyday social w orlds and attem pt to resolve certain
problematic situations" (Long, 1989; 248). Thus, this in-depth case study,
conducted over an extended period of time, serves as an illustrative insight into a set of social processes underpinning agricultural change in a particular location and allows a detailed examination of the subtleties of relations at the local level. However, it is recognised that the significance of individual cases can only be properly ascertained w hen the material generated is placed in a wider context in order to contribute to our understandings of the broader processes of change. More practically, the study has adopted an ethnographic approach which included formal and informal interviews, as well as participation in the daily tasks and routines of the actors, to uncover and interpret their narrative accounts of agricultural change.
The 'Vignerons du Pays d'Ensérune', a viticultural producer group (see box 3.1, page 117) are the prim ary actors of the case study along w ith their production and territorial partners, as identified by themselves, who occupy positions up to the scale of the region^. Thus members of the netw ork include farmers, local
^ Partnerships were traced to the regional level and not beyond due to the constraints of time and
the wish to conduct a detailed study of the processes of change at the local level. It is
acknowledged, however, that certain individuals interviewed are members of networks operating at the national and supra-national scale and thus their perspectives and positions will be influenced by supra-regional debates which, to a degree, are then built in locally. Linkages between the actors in the case study and others in the same broader viticulture network will span many spatial scales; they will be connected through different actor-spaces (Murdoch & Marsden,
A n In-D epth, C ase Study A pproach
civic and economic actors, along w ith regional officials, engaged in the
production of table wine and 'Vin de Pays' and involved in rural developm ent
initiatives. The study does not, therefore, focus on one actor-group, such as farmers or viticultural elites, for example. It takes a more holistic view because it is argued that as individual actors form shifting coalitions in the harnessing of threats and opportunities, new interrelationships develop at different levels between farming actors, other rural actors and society at large (see Knickel & Renting, 2000). The key to understanding these shifting relationships, therefore, is not to be found in the individuals themselves, but in broader processes and social structures. Therefore, it is necessary to make cormections between the testimonies of individuals and different groups of actors and to analyse the
material in its aggregate form. Moreover, the study does not assume a priori that
the behaviour of a group of actors, such as farmers for example, is uniform, and thus it seeks to avoid conceptions of an aggregated agriculture in a homogeneous rural and marketised world. Indeed, m uch of the work on the adoption of agri-environment schemes by farmers and their motivation to participate (see Morris & Potter, 1995; Wilson, 1997; Battershill & Gilg, 1996; 1997) highlights the complexity and temporal and spatial diversity of the farm adjustm ent process. This research, therefore, serves to emphasise the fact that farmers do not behave as a homogeneous group.
The case study group, the 'Vignerons du Pays d'Ensérune', w as identified during
the prelim inary field-trip through interviews conducted w ith regional officials and a reading of the grey literature held at the archive of the Chamber of
Agriculture of THérault on viticultural producer groups (see also Le Monde, 25
February 1998). It was selected on account of its innovative approach to
environm ental and territorial initiatives and therefore serves as an informative example in the analysis of rural change at the local-level and the negotiation, by local actors, of the shift from a singular concern w ith the production of grapes to a multifunctional role and the provision of aesthetic and conservation countryside goods. Deliberatively, the VPE are somewhat exceptional in terms of their early engagement in agri-environment schemes and rural developm ent
projects and indeed as Long (1989) suggests, the selection of case studies should be informed by research themes. In the first instance letters w ere sent to the President of the VPE, M. Bataille, and to M. Gazels, responsible for the VPE's environm ental activities and rural developm ent projects. Initially, therefore, access to the group was negotiated through the top.
A n E thnographic A pproach
An Ethnographic Approach
An ethnographic approach to the fieldwork was adopted. It affords the
observation of actors and actions in specific contexts over time, a revelation of the m eanings and processes which underpin social action, and the exploration of the lived experiences of local actors in all their complexity (May, 1997; Herbert, 2000). In keeping w ith this type of approach, the fieldwork involved three trips to the research community. The first trip, conducted in September 1999, was a prelim inary visit. Its objectives were to identify the case study, to gain a better understanding of the range of organisations associated with agriculture and viticulture in the Languedoc region, the divisions of responsibility and competencies at the local and sub-national level, to establish contacts in the academic community and to identify current research in the area. The second trip, dating from May to early November 2000, constituted the main body of the field-work and involved an extended stay in the village of Nissan- lez-Ensérune (hereafter referred to as Nissan), one of the communes served by the VPE. A large am ount of time was invested in this local community, typical of an ethnographic approach. This was im portant for the research project which necessitated the building of trust-bonds, learning about the culture, the internal vocabulary of the local actors and the organisation of the com munity in terms of a set of social relations. The final field-trip was in February and March, 2001, and w as based largely in Montpellier in order to conduct interviews with regional officials and policy makers.
The field-work was characterised by a steep learning curve. The subjects
covered ranged from the technical aspects of viticulture and vinification through to a deeper understanding of village social relations. The issue of learning contributed, in part, to the chronology of interviews conducted w ith different groups of actors. Specifically it m eant that I interviewed the farmers, the key case study actors, first and the regional officials last. Regional actors were interview ed at the end of the study for two reasons. D uring my extended stay in the local community, I attended meetings held by the VPE to which regional
actors were invited. This meant that over time, my presence was a familiar one, and I was able to draw on my own contacts to gain access to, and arrange
interviews w ith regional officials. Perhaps more critically, however, by
conducting these interviews at the end of the study I was able to interview regional officials w ith a level of understanding and experience gained through an extended stay in the research community that afforded me a legitimacy I w ould not have had at the start of the study. This was particularly im portant considering my positionality as a researcher; a young female interviewing
predom inantly male civil servants. These argum ents resonate w ith the
experiences of McDowell (1998) w hen she interviewed m erchant bankers in the City of London as part of her research on the small-scale, local interactions that make up the culture of an organisation. She describes how she emphasised her connections w ith the University of Cambridge, draw ing on a "elitist' conception of Cambridge in order to legitimate her role as interviewer in this male- dom inated and 'high-status' environment. Specifically she argues that it is im portant to recognise the power relations that exist betw een interviewer and interviewee which may be more pronounced w hen interviewing people in positions of authority. Schoenberger (1991) elaborates and notes the importance of being well-informed in a corporate interview setting.
M ethodological A pproaches
Methodological Approaches
Three methodological approaches were employed and these consisted of taped semi-structured interviews, untaped open-ended interviews or informal conversations, and participant observation. Each approach is described in turn, along w ith the types of data produced and the range of functions these different forms of data serve.
In terms of the taped semi-structured interviews, the commitment to privileging local actors' understandings of change created a tension betw een the need to impose a structure on respondents' answers through questioning to pursue the research questions, whilst at the same time adhering to the principles of a
bottom-up approach^. In terms of the taped interviews, this tension was
resolved through a mix of open-ended and semi-structured questions. A
question check-list was designed comprising pre-determ ined, qualitative, in- depth questions, which were a mix of open-ended and semi-structured questions (see appendix 1). A context sheet was devised to accompany both the formal and informal interviews (see appendix 2) to record information on the physical setting of the interview, the social circumstances, the frequency of interaction between the researcher and the respondent, the process of recruitm ent and impressions of the relationship between the researcher and the 'researched' (see Law, 1994 for the importance of recording these contextual indices in conducting ethnographic research).
A structure was imposed on the opening section of the taped interviews w ith farmers. This served a num ber of purposes. Firstly, these questions sought to
^ Whilst subscribing to a bottom-up approach which privileges the voices of the case study actors and which seeks to recount their experiences of change in their own terms, a completely extracted researcher role has not been followed in this piece of research. See Seur (1992) for a description of an approach in which interviews are unstructured, with much of the interview time spent reacting to the accounts of respondents, rather than encouraging them to react to the questions
prepared. In this piece of research, the questions and the themes around which the local
narratives are structured have, to a certain extent, been defined by the researcher according to a pre-determined set of research interests.
p u t respondents at ease, rather than immediately beginning the interview with an investigation of their thoughts, opinions and experiences, which in turn often m eant that they talked more freely in the conversational parts of the interview. These early questions addressed issues such as farm size, the proportion of their farm planted w ith im proved grape varieties, the training they had received and brief family histories. This information was collected, not to categorise the farmers, but rather to derive short biographies of these individuals to contextualise their stories. Similarly, the opening sections of interviews with off-farm actors, included questions which addressed issues such as employment history, their role in the institution and w hat positions they had previously held. Again this served to relax the interviewee b u t also afforded the interviewer some idea of w hat issues to probe in the later stages of the interview. The rem ainder of the interview, for both farmers and off-farm actors, was conducted under a semi-structured and open-ended format.
Following this initial section the early questions in the taped interviews were of an open-ended character and allowed respondents to talk about themselves and their personal experiences of change. This allowed the respondent to apply his or her own understandings of the broad themes introduced by the researcher and also allowed for an engagement in dialogue, providing opportunities for elaboration, clarification and the exploration of new themes. This open-ended approach to questioning confers flexibility and allows an examination of complexity and contradiction, whilst at same time bestow ing some structure for comparison (May, 1997). Particularly in the early stages of the research, the exact nature of the questions evolved as m y understanding of the issues increased.
General themes addressed in the question check-list w ere framed by a close reading of the literature on the Languedoc's viticulture sector, on CAP reform and the French agri-environmental agenda. This led me to identify the main dynamics of change experienced by the viticulture sector during the period of fracture dating from the 1970s as being the shift from the production of table
M ethodological A pproaches
wine to wine of a higher quality, along w ith the emergence of a multifunctional agricultural regime (see chapter 2). In particular, agri-environm ent initiatives and the CTE represented the key vehicles for exploring the transition to a m ulti
functional agriculture. These vehicles provided a prom pt tool for the
interviewer and a means through which to explore local experiences of change. They were not, however, used prescriptively. The questions tow ards the end of an interview typically were more structured and specifically explored the interviewee's perceptions of threats and opportunities and the motivations behind their actions. The notions of threats and opportunities are quite abstract, and to explore an individual's perceptions of threats and opportunities some respondents had to be prom pted using more concrete questions. They were asked how they perceived the reorientation tow ards im proved grape varieties or enrolment in the CTE, for example, and if these initiatives were regarded as an opportunity, for whom. These prom pts were understood to be im portant events as a result of w hat I learned in the field, through talking informally to people and reading newsletters on current initiatives and future orientations sent by the VPE's President to cooperative members over the last five years. However, whilst this m aterial was draw n upon as a prom pt, critically it was a m atter of identifying w hat was im portant to the interviewee.
The interviews were designed to examine personal experiences of changes in the viticulture sector, and in real-time terms the questions served to incorporate change from the mid-1970s4. As reported in chapter two, commentators have identified this period as one of fracture and intense restructuring. However, whilst imposing a time-frame on the discussions, the nature of change, its
The time-scale covered in terms of respondents’ experiences o f change varied according to the age of the interviewee. They were not asked to go further back in time than their lived memory. However, many of the younger farmers were from viticultural families and were eager to talk about their parent’s farm, their involvement in it as they grew up and distinguishing their management of the farm business from that of their parents. Thus most respondents were able to