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Call for papers: Embodied and technical expertise in agri-food innovation Sponsored by the Economic Geography Research Group Convenors: Richard Lee, Richard Milne and Peter Jackson This session will feature critical perspectives on the contested, dynamic and spatially sensitive nature of expertise throughout the agri-food system. Agri-food innovation is an increasingly technical endeavour characterised by a range of formalised expertises. However, practices of food production and consumption are also characterised by skills that may precede, compete with, or offer alternatives to standardisation and formalisation. Technological controversies and ‘food scares’ have made the contestation of scientific and technical expertise in agri-food systems routine. In turn, the nature and distribution of expertise has changed, focussing on transdisciplinary objects of analysis and increasingly concerned with debates about the constituency of those involved in the production of ‘expert advice’ (Demos 2004; Whatmore 2009; Collins and Evans 2007). Agri-food innovation reflects these trends, as consumer anxieties over food are increasingly important to the reassessment, reshaping and relocation of expertise and innovation. Consumer concerns are asserted along the food chain (Lowe et al 2008) and are reflected in ‘alternative’ food systems that challenge standardised practices and formal expertise. Although the diffusion of food-related anxiety occurs through communities of practice and expertise (Jackson and Everts 2010), the relationship between varieties of expert practice and social anxiety remains relatively unexplored. The session aims to consider agri-food expertise across a variety of spatial contexts: the body, the household, the retail and food service environment, food manufacturing sites and supply chain systems and food infrastructures. It will consider theories and analyses of: expertise in place, innovation strategies, changing forms of expertise, and the relationship between expertise and social anxieties. Instructions for Authors If you wish to submit a paper to this session, please contact Dr Richard Milne ([log in to unmask]) or Dr Richard Lee ([log in to unmask]).