ABSTRACT
If we are to make sense of state, market, and society relations, we need to have a sufficient conceptual understanding of our status and trajectories and the associated implications. To the extent that empirical study problematizes, or perhaps contradicts, theoretical framings of the situation, analysts need to take note. Few will object to empirical research aiming to specify what is meant by invoking the much debated term neoliberalism. It is possible that we do not have a satisfactorily coherent, encompassing, shared way to talk about “the state we are in” (Hutton, 1995) or what it is we object to and strive for as citizens and publicly engaged agri-food sociologists.
