Food Safety and Social Risk in Contemporary China

被引:187
作者
Yan, Yunxiang [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Anthropol, Los Angeles, CA 90024 USA
[2] E China Normal Univ, Dept Sociol, Shanghai, Peoples R China
关键词
HISTORY;
D O I
10.1017/S0021911812000678
中图分类号
K9 [地理];
学科分类号
0705 ;
摘要
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.
引用
收藏
页码:705 / 729
页数:25
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