Microbiopolitics and sanitary regulation: disagreements between science and local knowledge in the production of artisanal cheese in Minas Gerais

Abstract

This article focuses on the relations between artisanal cheese production in Minas Gerais and the imposition of bio-safety policies and practices that have been structures in international markets and global science structures. It analyzes how sanitary regulation has contributed for an image of cheese production in the countryside, with its strong cultural roots, as “archaic” and “un-hygienic”, seen with suspicion by urban and “modern” societies. The implementation this regulation presents industrial food production as more efficient and safer, at the same time building suspicions that peasants are producing contaminated and unsafe food. These sanitary norms convert microscopic beings as a threat to society and constitute a microbiopolitics that is a source of power, morally connecting poverty and risk. This process has created strong barriers to legalizing peasant products, interfering on their life ways.

Keywords:
artisanal cheese; microbiopolitics; laboratory; sanitary inspection