Bans, tests, and alchemy: Food safety regulation and the Uganda fish export industry
Bans, tests, and alchemy: Food safety regulation and the Uganda
fish export industry
复制标题
禁令、测试和炼金术：食品安全监管和乌干达鱼类出口业
DOI：
10.1007/s10460-006-9046-9
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发表时间：
2007
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
S. Ponte
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Ponte
现代食品安全监管纳入了质量管理原则和系统绩效目标，这些原则曾是私营标准的特征。相反，私人标准正在覆盖过去属于监管领域的领域。两者的性质越来越难以区分。乌干达鱼类出口业的案例研究突出表明，借鉴私营标准的管理方法如何适用于公共监管，以实现看似相互冲突的目标。20世纪90年代末，欧盟出于食品安全考虑，多次禁止从乌干达进口鱼类。然而，欧盟没有提供科学证据证明这些鱼实际上是“不安全的”。相反，乌干达的监管和监测系统表现不佳被用作理由。只有通过固定“制度”（条例和检查），并对所有出口到欧盟的货物进行实验室测试，乌干达渔业才恢复了其作为“安全”鱼类来源的地位。然而，乌干达目前的渔业安全管理制度存在大量漏洞和不一致之处。有些行动必须作为“核查仪式”进行。鉴于微生物检验和实验室在遵约制度中的重要性，“宗教仪式”提供了一个恰当的比喻。这些仪式是一种模式的重要组成部分，这种模式向欧盟食鱼公众保证，乌干达从船只到出口点的一切都在控制之下。因此，从渔船到登陆点的实际不遵守行为使渔业得以作为个体作业生存。
Contemporary regulation of food safety incorporates principles of quality management and systemic performance objectives that used to characterize private standards. Conversely, private standards are covering ground that used to be the realm of regulation. The nature of the two is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. The case study of the Ugandan fish export industry highlights how management methods borrowed from private standards can be applied to public regulation to achieve seemingly conflicting objectives. In the late 1990s, the EU imposed repeated bans on fish imported from Uganda on the basis of food safety concerns. However, the EU did not provide scientific proof that the fish were actually “unsafe.” Rather, the poor performance of Uganda’s regulatory and monitoring system was used as justification. Only by fixing “the system” (of regulations and inspections) and performing the ritual of laboratory testing for all consignments for export to the EU did the Ugandan industry regain its status as a “safe” source of fish. Yet, gaps and inconsistencies abound in the current Ugandan fish safety management system. Some operations are by necessity carried out as “rituals of verification.” Given the importance of microbiological tests and laboratories in the compliance system, “alchemic rituals” provide an appropriate metaphor. These rituals are part and parcel of a model that reassures the EU fish-eating public that all is under control in Uganda from boat to point of export. As a consequence, actual non-compliance from boat to landing site allows the fishery to survive as an artisanal operation.