Critical perspective on food safety: consequences of heteronomy - Archive ouverte HAL
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2011

Critical perspective on food safety: consequences of heteronomy

Résumé

Security is a feeling, resulting from various aspects. Out of an obviously dangerous situation like facing a hungry lion or standing beneath bombing, security is almost socially constructed. The way to secure situations or products, relies on processes elaborated through social interactions. Safety management, studied in food chain (PhD Thesis), focuses on consumer security, based on the ability of food industry to deliver safe goods, freeing the consumer from the worry of managing his diet safety. In that way, some critical perspectives emerge. Relying on a mainly heteronomous way of securing food leads to consequences, illustrated through the analysis of three situations related to food safety, with different levels of uncertainties. The first situation is about the management of a well-known risk, a HUS outbreak caused by chopped beef contaminated with E.coli O157:H7 ; the two last situations are dealing with BSE risk carrying high uncertainties: baby food industry strategy in France in 1990, compared with French public management of 1996 BSE crisis. The analysis of players acts and discourses shows that consumer is mostly conceived as a lay person, dependant on foreign know-how on safety management. Therefore, safety contributes to the economical battle between firms. These ones act to be recognized as producers of safe goods. Safety reputation may shift the competition between products. In market competition as in relations with public manager, included negotiation of regulations, one stake for the players, is to be recognized as the one who actually controls risks. For both firms or public managers, security legitimates actions or regulations and pushes back the limits of controlled areas, as knowledge can be extended and is supposed to require special attention. In that approach, consumer security, resulting from safety management, is embedded in a struggle between different players. Consumers are just arbiters with their trust.
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Dates et versions

hal-02746828 , version 1 (03-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02746828 , version 1
  • PRODINRA : 50946

Citer

Marie-Hélène Vergote. Critical perspective on food safety: consequences of heteronomy. Conference : Critical perspectives on security, May 2010, Maastricht, Netherlands. ⟨hal-02746828⟩

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