Using the case of food and nutrition, Juanita Uribe investigates in her PhD thesis how authoritative knowledge about governance objects is established in a contemporary landscape characterised by collaborative forms of governance, greater participation, and politicisation. She argues that the expert practices that shape governance objects have become increasingly detached from the substance and thematic content of these objects, shifting to a greater focus on their procedural and managerial dimensions.
How did you come to choose your research topic?
The choice of my research topic came about through a combination of chance, research interests, and experiences. I have always been intrigued by the tensions that arise when governing expands beyond national boundaries. Since my undergraduate studies, I have been interested in the question of how social orders can be built and maintained at the global level, which remains an experimental and elusive political space. This curiosity has persisted and has motivated me to further immerse myself into the fascinating field of global governance.
Can you describe your thesis questions and the methodology you use to approach those questions?
The main research question of my thesis is: How are the contours of global governance objects forged in a context of greater inclusion, reflexivity, and less triumphalist claims about what expertise can achieve?
To answer my question, I draw on the concept of co-production from the field of science and technology studies (STS), which points to the fact that knowledge production is always tied to particular visions about what society should be. However, I provide a finer-grained analysis of how co-production processes operate in concrete sites and practices of global governance. This socio-political perspective on co-production helps us understand why governance objects tend to exhibit a proclivity towards certain problematisations and solutions, despite the ongoing push for inclusivity and pluralisation. To illustrate these dynamics, I focus empirically on the field of food and health governance.
Regarding my methodology, the process was one of trial and error. I have tried to move away from a fixed and pre-established methodological repertoire to instead opt for an attitude towards research that is flexible and capable of resorting to heterogeneous knowledge sources. I developed a methodology inspired by ethnographic methods and embraced an eclectic set of research techniques, primarily based on interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis.
Having been interested in the role that methods play in global governance, more specifically in the domain of health, I was able to see to what extent adhering strictly to a set of pre-specified and rigid methodological criteria under the assumption of impartiality can lead to forms of dogmatism. Seeing methods as a set of pre-established rules that one needs to follow can lead to the “policing” of knowledge. While methodology courses often teach us to apply research methods seamlessly, I wanted to highlight the opposite perspective: the inherent frictions that arise during any research undertaking. An additional crucial aspect that shaped my methodological orientation revolved around normative questions such as: How to call for a methodology that does not itself lead to foreclosure? How do we engage with our objects and subjects of research? What realities do my methods help enact?
What are your major findings?
I found that in the context of environments that value inclusivity and that question the mastery of expertise, the “politics” of object-making thrive on heightened fluidity and dispersion.
There are two main shifts involved in this process: the first one is that the practices that delineate the contours of objects are becoming more procedural and detached from the content of these objects. Networks operating across sectors such as social investing consultancies, evidence assessment institutions, and firms specialising in consensus-building are assuming increasingly influential roles. These groups, that often escape any sort of accountability, do not derive their authority from traditional forms of expertise such as substantial knowledge, intra-professional regulation, or their capacity to interpret nature. Rather, their authority is rooted in their capacity to coordinate across sectors, deliver output-oriented results, and effectively manage the procedures of governing. Far from neutral, these intermediary processes shape objects in powerful ways.
The second shift is the fact that object-making is characterised by increased hybridity and visibility. This has significant implications for processes of knowledge production, which now take place through collaborative initiatives involving multiple actors. For example, we are no longer in an era in which private actors confine themselves to ghostwrite research or participate in lobbying. Nowadays, these actors operate more front-stage by producing policy-relevant knowledge that they disseminate through academic journals, partnerships, or high-level events.
Empirically, my research shows how these processes helped sustain a medicalised and commodified perspective on food. As a result, global efforts to tackle issues such as hunger or malnutrition tend to prioritise short-term solutions based on manufactured products which can be tested through experimental research approaches. The problem arises when this way of knowing and governing objects comes to be touted as the only way forward, regardless of contextual factors. The problematic aspect is when there are more financial incentives for these short-term proposals, which promise to give investors high future returns, than for those that address the underlying causes of problems.
What could be the social and political implications of your thesis?
By highlighting the intricate ways in which object-making unfolds in contemporary governance, my research points to broader socio-political questions related to power, accountability, and authority. The two shifts that I have just described have real political consequences.
On the one hand, the fact that the practices that shape objects are increasingly transversal and procedural poses a significant challenge to processes of political contestation. On what grounds can citizens contest the work of consultancies or initiatives that claim to be working on how to make collaboration more effective, how to scale up investments, or how to reach political consensus? It is hard to show counter-evidence or to contest these “what works” type of claims, mainly as they seem impartial and are dissociated from the core substance of the problems at hand. Examining how the possible expressions of global governance objects are articulated seemed to me to be a crucial step to open up avenues for alternatives.
On the other hand, my thesis points to the paradox that political marginalisation can occur through processes of inclusion and not only through direct acts of exclusion and co-optation. The fact that global governance is becoming more inclusive is, of course, desirable. However, the trend towards more horizontal governance arrangements cannot prevent us from raising broader concerns about processes of resource allocation and power. For example, what are the implications of the fact that some actors who contribute significantly to unhealthy diets through the production of ultra-processed food are incorporated as part of the solution rather than as those who need to be held accountable? What are the consequences of the blurring of boundaries between duty-bearers, duty-holders, and rights-holders under multistakeholder initiatives? An important political dimension of my thesis is to show that this trend towards hybridity can also inadvertently lead to novel dynamics of exclusion and depoliticisation.
What are you going to do now that the doctorate is behind you?
I will join the Swiss National Science Foundation project De-blackboxing Expertise hosted by the Global Governance Centre as a postdoctoral researcher. I am very happy to join Professor Littoz-Monnet's interdisciplinary team to continue exploring the politics of knowledge production in global governance. In an era where knowledge claims abound and serve as the core rationale to legitimise global agendas, the project seeks to foster crucial questions that help inform a vision of expertise that is capable of addressing questions such as who benefits, what is acceptable, and under what circumstances. Given the current context, the project's focus on these questions is particularly relevant and timely. I very much look forward to it.
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Citation of the PhD thesis:
Uribe, Juanita. “The Constitution of Objects within the Middle Spaces of Global Governance: The Politics of Food and Eating.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2023.
The thesis is embargoed until June 2026. For access, please contact Juanita Uribe at juanita.uribe@graduateinstitute.ch.
Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.
Banner picture: Gts/Shuttertstock.