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The collaborative research relationship is a diffuse ideal amongst geographers conducting qualitative research with other organisations. The language of working 'with' other organisations is widely used in academic publishing and presentations and is being increasingly institutionalised through research funding protocols, university procedures and postgraduate training. Whilst there has been much debate over the nature of the research relationship and power in the encounter, these have tended to focus on relationships between individuals or with marginalised communities. This paper explores a research relationship between a researcher and a municipal network in India to discuss the dynamics of collaborating in 'the field'. I argue that this language of working 'with' others often hides a more complex research relationship and in some cases (such as the one I discuss) the power of the 'researched' organisation to shape the relationship away from the ideal of collaboration is not fully recognised, nor the potential clash in epistemology. I go on to suggest that in some instances this diffuse ideal may have permeated the discipline too far and geographers need to more critically assess the limitations of such a research relationship. Whilst the ideal of collaborating is an important one in certain instances, in others relationships built on different parameters may allow for more critical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of organic food has been regarded for a long time as being synonymous with ecological regional production systems. However, the increased production of organic food products has led to an ongoing industrialisation and also to a global spread of network structures within this segment of agriculture. This paper provides a case study of the integration of organic pepper farmers from an indigenous tribe in Kerala, India, into global agro-food networks, linking them to a German producer of organic meat products. The results of this study show that the importance of the territorial embeddedness and the abandonment of the exercise of power can be crucial for the success of global organic agro-food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary I would like to offer some reflections on the Deleuzian concept of 'assemblage' (agencement) from the perspective of my grounding in 'governmentality studies' and, secondly, on the latter's central concern with the concept of the security 'apparatus' (dispositif). I would like to suggest that the two be thought of dialectically, both as concepts and as actually-existing things in the world. After outlining my use to date of these concepts, and their deployment in my research into colonial India, I will counterpoise Giorgio Agamben's and Giles Deleuze's reflections on Michel Foucault's use of the term dispositif/apparatus. Deleuze's obvious and acknowledged indebtedness to Foucault's work, but his explicit re-rendering of the Foucauldian interest in order with the Deleuzian conceptualisation of dis-order, will be used to conclude with some methodological suggestions regarding how Deleuze and Foucault, agencement and dispositif, assemblages and apparatuses, can and should be thought together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]