Translating terroir: the global challenge of French AOC labeling

This essay considers the current importance of labels of origin for agro-food products as part of a biopolitics of food that relinks the local and global through an emphasis on place. The particular example of the French system of AOC labeling (appellation d’origin côntrolée) is explored in both directions, linking to the local through the concept of terroir, and linking to the global as intellectual property defined by the GATT and regulated by the WTO as a "geographical indication." Embeddedness perspectives and conventions theory are suggested as fruitful avenues for understanding why labels of origin present a challenge to conventional agriculture. These theoretical perspectives also shed light on how origin labeled products administered by the state impact rural development through the processes of negotiation they engender. The French AOC request process is outlined and aspects of it analyzed in more detail to demonstrate how it opens market forms of justification to larger arenas of social scrutiny.