Food Infrastructures and Technologies of Trust in Contemporary China

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Studies of contemporary food production document both the environmental and ethical problems of mass production and the ongoing search for sustainable alternatives. Industrial food infrastructures characterised by long supply chains and a sense of ethical disconnection between producers and consumers often appear to undermine consumer trust and require remedial measures in the form of technologies of trust. Post-Mao China is a case in point: food safety is a constant headache for both regulators and consumers and the 2008 milk scandal was but a low point in a seemingly endless series of incidents involving sub-standard and dangerous food. While regulators are pushing traceability and certification, the promise of perfectly transparent production and distribution of food inspires limited confidence, and people pursue a variety of alternative strategies, including building personal relations with producers and vendors, do-it-yourself farming, and accessing the special produce grown for government units. Based on fieldwork among farmers and officials in rural Hebei, this chapter explores how contemporary food infrastructures in China call for the deployment of technologies of trust that range from low-tech cultivation of social relations with producers to high-tech systems of transparency based on surveillance and laboratory testing of foodstuffs.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Palgrave Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology
EditorsMaja Hojer Bruun, Ayo Wahlberg, Rachel Douglas-Jones, Cathrine Hasse, Klaus Hoeyer, Dorthe Brogård Kristensen, Britt Ross Winthereik
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Publication date2022
Pages703-720
Chapter36
ISBN (Print)9789811670862, 9789811670831
ISBN (Electronic)9789811670848
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

ID: 229896214