Feeding on Fear: An Analysis of Food Scares and the Restructuring of International Fresh Food Commodity Chains

以恐惧为食：食品恐慌与国际生鲜商品链重组分析

• 批准号: 9982141
• 负责人: Susanne Freidberg
• 金额: $ 5.08万
• 依托单位: Dartmouth College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-04-01 至 2002-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9982141&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Feeding; Fear; Analysis; Food; Scares

Recent food scares in Europe and the United States show how the internationalization and industrialization of the food supply have produced not only unprecedented abundance and variety but also a host of new perils. These incidents have forced changes both in government regulations and food industry production practices. How are these changes in turn transforming trade relations between the South's food exporters and their markets in the North? This question holds important implications for some of the world's poorest countries, such as Burkina Faso. For decades Burkina Faso has been one of Africa's largest exporters of French green beans, but continued access to the European market is hardly assured. Many countries now produce high-value fresh fruit and vegetable (FFV) crops for export to Europe, and some, such as Zimbabwe, have far superior technological and economic resources. Meanwhile, the conditions for access to the food-scared European market have become increasingly stringent and exclusionary. This project will examine how changing cultural constructs of quality and risks in food are transforming exchange and contract relations along key FFV commodity chains between Africa and Europe. It will draw on the ethnographic methodology as well as the contacts established during previous NSF-funded research in Burkina Faso. The project will also involve ethnographic fieldwork in the Rungis International Market in France, a pilot study of the FFV sector in Zimbabwe, and library and archival research. The analysis will aim to determine how food safety concerns are understood, experienced, and acted upon by people involved in the production and distribution of African FFV. This project, as one part of a multi-year study of food safety and trade, makes four important contributions. First, by examining the role of popular "food fears" in the restructuring of international trade, it demonstrates how cultural constructs of quality, risk, and trust both shape and are shaped by the power relations and economic geography of the global food system. Second, this research highlights previously unexamined differences within this global system. By comparing export operations in two African sites with quite different social, economic, and political histories, it illuminates how international trade patterns are shaped by race, class and uneven development. Third, this research will demonstrate how qualitative methods can be used to analyze the relationship between nature, culture and political economy not only within a local or regional food supply system but also across transcontinental commodity chains. Finally, this research contributes to the broader understanding of how culture informs and responds to economic globalization.

最近在欧洲和美国发生的粮食恐慌表明，粮食供应的国际化和工业化不仅产生了前所未有的丰富和多样性，而且还产生了一系列新的危险。 这些事件迫使政府法规和食品工业生产实践发生变化。 这些变化又如何改变南方粮食出口国与其北方市场之间的贸易关系？ 这个问题对布基纳法索等世界上一些最贫穷的国家具有重要影响。几十年来，布基纳法索一直是非洲最大的法国绿色豆出口国之一，但继续进入欧洲市场很难得到保证。 许多国家现在生产高价值的新鲜水果和蔬菜作物，出口到欧洲，有些国家，如津巴布韦，拥有优越得多的上级技术和经济资源。 与此同时，进入粮食短缺的欧洲市场的条件变得越来越严格和排斥。 该项目将研究不断变化的食品质量和风险文化结构如何改变非洲和欧洲之间沿着主要FFV商品链的交换和合同关系。 它将利用人种学方法以及在布基纳法索以前由国家科学基金会资助的研究期间建立的联系。 该项目还将涉及在法国Rungis国际市场的人种学实地考察、对津巴布韦FFV部门的试点研究以及图书馆和档案研究。 该分析旨在确定参与非洲FFV生产和分销的人员如何理解、体验和采取行动。该项目作为食品安全和贸易多年研究的一部分，作出了四项重要贡献。 首先，通过研究流行的“粮食恐惧”在国际贸易结构调整中的作用，它展示了质量，风险和信任的文化结构如何塑造全球粮食系统的权力关系和经济地理。 其次，这项研究突出了这个全球体系中以前未被研究的差异。 通过比较两个具有不同社会、经济和政治历史的非洲地区的出口业务，阐明了种族、阶级和不平衡发展如何塑造国际贸易模式。 第三，本研究将展示如何使用定性方法来分析自然，文化和政治经济之间的关系，不仅在当地或区域的粮食供应系统，而且在跨大陆的商品链。 最后，这项研究有助于更广泛地了解文化如何通知和应对经济全球化。