Territorializing effects of global standards: What is at stake in the case of 'sustainable' palm oil?

Ruysschaert Denis, Carter Caitriona, Cheyns Emmanuelle. 2019. Territorializing effects of global standards: What is at stake in the case of 'sustainable' palm oil?. Geoforum, 104 : 1-12.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.009

Article de revue ; Article de recherche ; Article de revue à facteur d'impact

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Quartile : Q1, Sujet : GEOGRAPHY

Liste HCERES des revues (en SHS) : oui

Thème(s) HCERES des revues (en SHS) : Géographie-Aménagement-Urbanisme-Architecture

Résumé : Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commodities produced in the tropics. Our study analyses the most well-established of these standards, namely the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). We show how, far from being a market device restricted to re-organising global markets in palm oil, RSPO standardisation has wider consequences spatially re-distributing power with territorial effects. Territorialisation occurs through two processes: a strategic and operational process linked to the fabrication and application of procedural rules; a socio-technological process linked to the valorisation of managerial approaches to sustainability. Over time, these twin processes have institutionalised a transnational political space of action with territorial properties. These include: new frontiers of political authority de-bordering national jurisdiction (geographically connecting local scale oil palm estates and plantations with a transversal global supply chain stretching from producing to consuming countries); historical connection; internal coherence and imposition of managerial practices and discourses, including managerial constructions of interdependencies between people, nature and artefacts; prime beneficiaries (large southeast Asian growers, international environmental NGOs and (mainly) European downstream firms); marginalised people (independent smallholders and communities in Malaysia and Indonesia). In this manner, RSPO reinforces its political power and authority over a managerial form of sustainability of palm oil production through territorialising it. Ultimately, this transnational political space of action comes into interaction (and, potentially, conflict) with other political spaces of action and territorial projects as pursued by local people, other NGOs or Malaysian and Indonesian state governments.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : plantation forestière, Elaeis guineensis, impact sur l'environnement, agroécologie, économie de production, certification

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Asie du Sud-Est, Malaisie, Indonésie

Mots-clés libres : Certification, Global standards, Palm oil, Sustainability, Territory

Classification Agris : K10 - Production forestière
P01 - Conservation de la nature et ressources foncières
E16 - Économie de la production
D50 - Législation

Champ stratégique Cirad : CTS 5 (2019-) - Territoires

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