EAS396 Lecture 11
Food Safety in China Key Terms
“Risk Society” by Ulrich Beck
“Differential mode of association” by Xiaotong Fei
Food Sovereignty
Social distrust
Counter-hegemony
Yunxiang Yan
• Anthropologist at UCLA
• manufactured foods risk are difficult to calculate and control
• the biggest risk is social distrust in Chinese societies
• He cares about morality in Chinese societies
• Historical review of food safety in China
o Stage 1 (1950-1982)
▪ main problem is public canteen problems 49 out of 139 cases
▪ poor sanitation, unsafe storage of leftovers, lack of hygiene regulations,
improper cooking methods
▪ staff made no effort to cheat the customers
▪ food-poisoning cases caused by pesticides or harmful chemicals began to occur
in 1970s
▪ 1982 Food Hygiene Law
o Stage 2 (1932 – 2002)
▪ Poisonous food
• Poisonous Food
o Food adulteration: cooking oil
o Food additives: antibiotics, colorants, hormones
o Pesticides used as food preservatives
o Fake foods: fake milk powder, fake medicine, fake egg, fake soy sauce etc.
• Possible Causes
o Government regulations and industry
▪ 500,000 large-scale food processing companies
▪ 350,000 small and medium-sized enterprises
▪ over 20 million private owned business in the food retail line
▪ Source: Xinhua, 2008
▪ profit-driven manufacturers
▪ inefficient inspection systems ▪ loopholes in food legislation and labeling laws
• no organic food, but there is Greenfood label
• Greenfood equals to our regular food in Canada
• political leaders can access to those organic foods
o Cultural explanation: differential mode of association
▪ also provides a rationale why they put additives
▪ concept to promote differential mode is by Fei Xiaotong
• studied under Malinowski
• trained in the UK
▪ Distinctiveness of Chinese society
▪ How does China differ from the West?
• a common dichotomy: individualism (Westerners) vs. collectivism
(Chinese)
• Fei Xiaotong said Chinese is egocentrism
• He means that in the social network of Chinese society, it suggests that
for farmers, they have a miss conduct and apply different morality in
different social realm
• For westerners he suggests that each individual in that society has the
same right, responsibility and privilege
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• theory that developed in early 20 century
o Role of S&T: risk society
▪ The pesticides and chemicals can save time
▪ more chemical stuff in the food and they have to develop an efficient way to
detect the chemicals in the foods
▪ China has GMO rights
▪ Chemicals also happens in medicine as well
▪ science is intertwined with industries
▪ the conflict of interest with who they speak to
• Ulrich Beck: Risk Society
o Examples of risks caused by science and technology
▪ Nuclear plant explosion – we don’t have control of S&T
▪ Bhopal chemical explosion
▪ global warming and environmental pollution
▪ poisonous food
• Reflexive Modernization
o Modern time we enjoy the advance of S&T and we don’t worry about the food supply
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