Some interesting results have been obtained which challenge the normal approaches to both food and government.

I think the results are well established by the techniques and toolbox I have used, and the techniques are well founded on theoretical and academic foundations.

The triangulation process has validated the results, but also raised questions because of the different perspectives implicit in triangulation

In general I think that my work has academic validity, although I am not using an explicitly academic discourse (see here for more about my authorial discourse)

One inevitable challenge of dealing with discourse is the issue of selection:-

• There is a 'great milling mass' of discourse, and all discourses are knotted together in this. The Government has selected the most important discourses (from their perspective) from this milling mass for inclusion in their aims and objectives.
• They have then formulated these discourses into an "aims and objectives" format
• I have selected the discourse and text analysis techniques that I have used
• I have then selected which techniques to use on which particular aims and objectives
• I have then composed this into an authorial discourse.
  

This is the nature of all communication, except it is usually implicit and unformulated. My defence against any possible criticism is that:-

1. I have taken care to extract techniques which have sound theoretical foundations,
2. I have tried to use triangulation and a multi-disciplinary approach to validate my results
3. In any case, in the light of my ideas about the dispositive, I have tried not to be definitive in my statements, but to use hypothesis and questioning as my methods of investigation.

Overall, I think my results are valid and realistic, and raise worthwhile questions about the nature of Government and about food and food production in our society

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