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Labelling the Economy

Qualities and Values in Contemporary Markets

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Brice Laurent

    1. Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation - i3, Mines ParisTech, PSL University, Paris, France

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  2. Alexandre Mallard

    1. Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation - i3, Mines ParisTech, PSL University, Paris, France

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Gathers empirical analysis of labeling processes in a variety of domains, including agri-food, the construction sector, retail and health

  • Offers a fresh and valuable contribution to the growing field of studies that engage with a range of market-related activities

  • Addresses issues that have become pervasive in economic and political life, and even more so in the context of a growing concern for sustainability

  • Demonstrates the productivity of an investigation that accounts for the diversity of labeling practices

  • Builds on a plurality of interrelated conceptual perspectives on labeling

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction Labels in Economic and Political Life: Studying Labelling in Contemporary Markets

    • Brice Laurent, Alexandre Mallard
    Pages 1-31

  3. Contested Terrain: The Ongoing Struggles over Food Labels, Standards and Standards for Labels

    • Lawrence Busch
    Pages 33-58

  4. Labelling Agroecology: A Study of Valuation Processes in Developing Countries

    • Allison Marie Loconto
    Pages 59-90

  5. Energy and Sustainability Labels in the Commercial Office Market in the UK

    • Noel Cass
    Pages 91-123

  6. The Role of Standards and Exemplars in Consolidating Labels for Sustainable Construction

    • Eva Boxenbaum, Susse Georg
    Pages 125-150

  7. The Sign, Beyond the Signal: How the State, Small Businesses and a Frog Participated in Labelling in the Home Retrofit Market

    • Alexandre Mallard, Jean Francès, Aurélie Tricoire
    Pages 151-183

  8. Governing by Labels? Not That Simple: The Cases of Environmental and Nutritional Policies in France

    • Henri Bergeron, Patrick Castel, Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier, Etienne Nouguez, Olivier Pilmis
    Pages 185-206

  9. A European Market for Green Certificates? The Failed Disentanglement of Immaterial Labels from the Materiality of Electricity

    • Brice Laurent, Brieuc Petit
    Pages 207-232

  10. The Tower of Labels: Labelling Goods in the US Grocery Store (1922–2018)

    • Franck Cochoy, Johan Hagberg, Hans Kjellberg
    Pages 233-270

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 271-278
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Keywords

About this book

This collected volume analyses labelling as a political and economic operation. It gathers contributions that focus on various domains, including the agri-food sector, the construction sector, eco-labelling, retail, health public policies and the energy sector, considering the use of labels for various objectives, such as providing legal and technical data on consumption products, certifying their quality, and indicating the approval of professional or political authorities. These practices are tied to both public and private interventions that make civic concerns visible and aim to govern them. The book considers ‘labelling the economy’ as an operation that introduces political questions into the economic realm, while also importing economic modes of reasoning into governance interventions. In doing so, the book considers the sociotechnical apparatus on which any label relies as a nexus where economic and political considerations are brought together.

Reviews

“The authors of this powerful new collection take us on a thorough investigation of the political and economic texture of labelling in modern markets. Together, studies of such matters as food, prices, property, energy and sustainable construction, explore labels as central to the functioning of markets and their politicization. What we learn as readers is that labels introduce a continual process of qualification, of which this blurb is a part.” (Professor Daniel Neyland, Head of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, Author of Can Markets Solve Problems)
“This vivid and inspiring book asks how labelling products across a wide range of sectors is turned into a powerful instrument of market governance by public and private stakeholders. It should be read by all those who are concerned with understanding the politics of modern markets.” (Pascale Trompette, Senior Research Fellow, CNRS, University of Grenoble Alpes)


Editors and Affiliations

  • Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation - i3, Mines ParisTech, PSL University, Paris, France

    Brice Laurent, Alexandre Mallard

About the editors

Brice Laurent is senior researcher at the Center for the Sociology of Innovation at the Ecole des Mines ParisTech, PSL Research University, France.

Alexandre Mallard is Director of the Center for the Sociology of Innovation at the Ecole des Mines ParisTech, PSL Research University, France. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Labelling the Economy

  • Book Subtitle: Qualities and Values in Contemporary Markets

  • Editors: Brice Laurent, Alexandre Mallard

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1498-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-1497-5Published: 02 February 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-1500-2Published: 02 February 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-1498-2Published: 01 February 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 278

  • Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations, 20 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Science and Technology Studies

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