Cosmopolitan risk community in a bowl: a case study of China’s good food movement

Abstract

Ulrich Beck fundamentally transformed our way of thinking about human interdependence through his three core theses on risk, individualisation and cosmopolitanisation. However, two commonly observed deficiencies in Beck’s grand theory were its Eurocentric orientation and a lack of empirical grounding. Based on 5 focus groups and 14 interviews with participants of the emerging Clean Food Movement in China, this paper extends the Beckian discussion outside Europe. Through examining how individuals understand both ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ risks associated with contemporary food consumption, this paper demonstrates that in the face of unpredictable and incalculable harms, risks are not seen as a ‘thing’, but are translated into ‘causal relations’. Subsequently, for Chinese stakeholders, the best way to safeguard food risks is to enact more visible and functioning interdependent relations in the food system. This in turn has given rise to new forms of communities which cut across conventional geographic, socio-economic and political boundaries. The paper deepens a Beckian theorisation in two ways. First, it demonstrates that the ‘enabling’ effect of risk towards a cosmopolitan society is not limited to obvious global crises, such as climate catastrophes and financial meltdown. In fact, the mundane yet intimate concern of putting ‘good’ food in one’s dinner bowl already presses actors to form new social solidarities that are cosmopolitan in nature. Second, it goes beyond Beck’s assertion that the risk society has culminated in a cosmopolitan moment, and explores how a performative cosmopolitan community reshapes the ‘relations of definition’ to mitigate risks on the ground.     

The Cosmopolitan Grassroots City as Megaphone: Reconstructing Public Spaces through Urban Activism in Jakarta

Discussions on social movements in Asian cities are inseparable from the abundance of public rallies in the region. In this article, I look at the case of Thamrin‐Sudirman, the main thoroughfare in Jakarta, Indonesia, to uncover how physical urban spaces constituting part of the city as living systems broaden the reach of social movements' agendas. The study involved continuous observation at rallies, interviews with social movement leaders and participants, and a look at simultaneous public rallies in various cities. This article analyzes the sites of public rallies as ‘megaphones’, based on the patterns of issues featured in the rallies, the groups participating, and the nodes and paths that they constructed. Two key dimensions of the megaphone are: (1) the symbolic and historical significance of the sites of rallies; (2) the relationship between the space and the media. Particular sites in cities become places where information is gathered, distributed and transferred through the media, facilitating a network among cities. This article concludes that cities are agents of political actions that amplify ideas and spread them across the globe. The urban centers' megaphonic function results from the synergy between the public space in the built environment and the public sphere, and is reflective of the recentering of the city.     

The moderating effect of self-esteem on consumer responses to global positioning in advertising

The study investigates consumers' responses to global positioning in advertising from the perspective of self. It is suggested that consumers' attitudes toward the brand advertised through global positioning are influenced by their ideal selves and cosmopolitan orientations and these influences are moderated by one's self-esteem level. Study 1 shows that attitudes toward the globally positioned brand are more positive for those with ideal selves that are more congruent with personal traits associated with globally positioned brands, but only for those with high self-esteem. Interview results from study 2 suggest that low self-esteem informants make use of the global brands associated with ‘Western’ as a means of signaling their social selves in order to obtain social approval and that high self-esteem informants attend to ad content, whether the ad employs global or local positioning.     

建设大宁波的对策思考

随着经济全球化的推进和中国加入WTO的机遇，区域经济的发展出现了一些新的变化趋势，城市发展必须适应信息化、全球化、技术进步创新等带来的竞争和发展机遇，建设大宁波已经成为区域经济发展的必然。但作为国际型的区域经济中心，宁波尚需在城市化进程、文化建设、城市规模、科技创新等方面进一步发展。