The social construction of typical food-processing products in the local territorial development: Disputes between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge

Abstract

Our work arises from projects from the University Extension in Berisso's coastal territory, 15 km from the Faculty of Agrarian and Forest Sciences of La Plata. The purpose of the process of intervention was to improve the socio-economic conditions of domestic producers in a context of skilled occupations, practices and knowledge recovery. The vine-grower's trades and vine grower-wine maker's trade were the beginning of a road run during the last 12 years, resulting in the incipient rebirth of the food-processing activity in Berisso. Thus originating adjustments, innovations characteristic of social interaction and from the intervention process itself. The proposals which took form of projects shared by Exact Sciences and Agronomy [year 2006, 2007 and 2010], of the fact that one of the worn out axes was the participative construction of practices in the primary production [vineyards and mounts of plum-trees] and agro industrial production [wines, fermented] allowed to contribute to the improvement and valuation of typical food-processing products. In the educational process itself conflicts take place presenting obstacles, to the shared construction of knowledge, impeding the incorporation of knowledge that contributes to guarantee the quality of the products. This joint construction of knowledge has not been harmonious and has generated both in the producers and in the involved technical personnel a process of reflection about what is a "good agricultural or manufacture practice" and what is not. This way the debate registers in the valuation of different types of knowledge: the codified knowledge versus the tacit one, which are personified by different people: technical personnel and producers respectively