A constructivist view on the quality of food
Résumé
Quality of regional food should be approached from diverse points of view that integrate the complexity of its multiple dimensions. So far, focus has been laid on two opposed approaches: the objectivist and subjectivist schools. The objectivist school points toward the materialization of quality and its measurement through a series of objectifiable variables. The subjective school, unilaterally at times, focuses on the role of symbolic values associated to the production, elaboration and consumption of food. The present approach intends to consider quality of food from a double constructivist perspective. On one hand, to understand quality as a social construction, i.e. "a process that proposes not only the products but also the interactions occurred in the definition and control of said products" (Casabianca y Valseschini, 1995). On the other hand, to approach the process of qualification of the product from a scientific and constructivist view. This type of analysis postulates that reality (in this case, the quality of food) cannot be known as what it is. This is due to the fact that, when encountering an object in its cognitive frame, every person cannot but only notice and order the data the product offers.