It has been proposed that the policies and practices of food sovereignty, unlike those of today's hegemonic food/agricultural system, provide the means for satisfying and safeguarding the right to food security for everyone everywhere. My principal objective in this article, which gains its significance in the light of an explanatory critique of the current system, is to explore how scientific research — using what kinds of methodologies, and building on experiences of what and of whom? — can constructively inform these (...) practices and policies, and contribute towards appraising this proposal. (shrink)

This paper interprets Karl Polanyi through dialectical critical realism. The paper maintains that this interpretation offers Polanyi methodological coherence and philosophical support. It further provides dialectical critical realism with an exemplar of explanatory critique. It is argued that the social theory of Polanyi aims at the demystification of market-systems as they are theoretically constructed by both orthodox and heterodox accounts of capitalism. Dialectical critical realism is best capable of situating the theoretical accomplishment of Polanyi’s historical and dialectical critiques of social (...) being. (shrink)

Legitimation of public policies that support the widespread plantings of transgenic crops presuppose, among other conditions, that evidence supports that there are no unmanageable environmental risks and there are no better ways to produce enough nourishing food that can dispense with the transgenics-oriented ways. This paper discusses: the kinds of scientific inquiry that are needed to address adequately, the connections between investigations of and , and how these investigations are related with controversial social values.A legitimação de políticas públicas que apóiam (...) o cultivo de lavouras transgênicas em larga escala pressupõe, entre outras condições, que os dados empíricos garantem não haver riscos ambientais não-administráveis e, a não-existência de modos melhores de produzir alimentos sem a utilização de técnicas transgênicas. O artigo discute: Os tipos de investigação científica necessários para um exame adequado da condição , como as investigações sobre e se relacionam entre si, e como tais investigações se relacionam com valores sociais controvertidos. (shrink)