Current Institutional Affiliation
Lecturer, Anthropology, Yale University

Award Information

International Dissertation Research Fellowship 2014
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Anthropology, Yale University
Eating against the Grain in Late Socialist China

In a climate of deep distrust toward the conventional food system, Chinese urban consumers have begun pursuing direct relationships with rural and periurban producers in an effort to secure trustworthy food 'at the source.' In China's late socialist context, problems of food safety are linked to prevailing discourses of social and moral crisis, as well as to popular distrust of state regulation. Through face-to-face relationships, consumers are attempting to personalize and clarify the relations of production behind their daily meals. This project seeks to understand the nature of new farmer-consumer relationships, which are emerging across China's deep rural-urban divide and within the politically- and culturally-charged arena of food. By examining these relationships from the situated perspective of a Hangzhou restaurant, its producer networks, and its clientele, this project will investigate the larger political-economic and moral implications of new mobilizations, and new communities, developing around 'good food.'

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