Food Safety and Social Risk in Contemporary China

Food-safety problems constitute a new, urgent, and multifaceted challenge to Chinese people, society, and the state, involving a number of social, political, and ethical issues beyond those of food safety, nutrition, and health. In light of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society, this article exa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of Asian studies Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 705 - 729
Main Author: Yan, Yunxiang
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.08.2012
Duke University Press, NC & IL
Subjects:
Asia
Asian Cultural Groups
Asian studies
Beck, Ulrich (1944-2015)
Case studies
Chemical contaminants
Chemical hazards
China
Chinese
Chinese languages
Contemporary history
Diet
Ethical dilemmas
Ethics
Ethnology
Factory farming
Food
Food contamination
Food contamination & poisoning
Food law
Food poisoning
Food processing
Food safety
Food, food preparation
Health Problems
Healthy food
Hygiene
Modernity
Modernization
Morphological source materials
Nutrition
Organic farming
Peoples Republic of China
Pesticides
Politics
Public health
Risk
Risk Society
Safety
Social problems
Social relations. Intercultural and interethnic relations. Collective identity
Social structure and social relations
Society
Technology
Trust
Unsafe
China
Eastern Asia
Decline
Poisening
Theory
Food security
Risk society
Trust
Hygiene
Food
ISSN:0021-9118, 1752-0401
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Food-safety problems constitute a new, urgent, and multifaceted challenge to Chinese people, society, and the state, involving a number of social, political, and ethical issues beyond those of food safety, nutrition, and health. In light of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society, this article examines food-safety problems in contemporary Chinese society at the levels of food hygiene, unsafe food, and poisonous foods and argues that food-safety problems not only affect the lives of Chinese people in harmful ways but also pose a number of manufactured risks that are difficult to calculate and control. More importantly, food-safety problems in China have contributed to a rapid decline of social trust, thus posing a risk of distrust that has far-reaching social and political ramifications. In this sense, a risk society has already arrived in China but it comes with certain local characteristics and poses some new theoretical questions.
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ISSN:0021-9118
1752-0401
DOI:10.1017/S0021911812000678