This paper integrates historical and contemporary theorizations of relational values in both people–nature and people–people relationships, in order to further develop concepts used to analyze how values are embedded in systems of human–environment interactions. We focus on people–people relational values that can motivate sustainable agricultural practices, projects and systems by drawing on Polanyi’s articulation of substantive economics, and the distinction between the principles that organize economic systems and the ability of those systems to express multiple types of values. We apply these concepts to characterize how relational values are operationalized within sustainable agriculture projects, and we review how descriptions of such projects in the literature characterize their organizing principles and specific values. Our review suggests that instrumental and relational values can coexist within a single system, and we argue that it is the values, and not the organizing principles of the system, that determine potential impacts of agricultural sustainability.

本文将人与自然以及人与人之间的关系价值的历史和当代理论进行了整合，以进一步发展用于分析价值如何嵌入人与环境互动系统中的概念。我们关注人与人之间的关系价值，这些价值可以通过借鉴波兰尼对实体经济学的表述来激发可持续农业实践，项目和系统，以及组织经济系统的原则与这些系统表达多种价值的能力之间的区别。我们运用这些概念来表征关系价值如何在可持续农业项目中得以实现，并且我们回顾文献中对此类项目的描述如何表征其组织原则和具体价值。