Wet markets, supermarkets and alternative food sources: consumers’ food access in Nanjing, China

Post-socialist smallholders: silence, resistance and alternatives

“…In such contexts, where identification as a peasant is unstable, smallholders and large farms co-exist, or grand ideological visions are distrusted, the appeal or applicability of global concepts such "food sovereignty", "organic agriculture" and "alternative food networks" cannot be taken for granted (see Si, Scott and McCordic [2019] and Si, Schumilas and Scott [2015] on alternative food networks in China, or DeMaster [2013] on food sovereignty in Poland). Often the post-socialist smallholder practices do not constitute an explicit alternative to large-scale farming.…”

Sociocultural, behavioural and political factors shaping the COVID-19 pandemic: the need for a biocultural approach to understanding pandemics and (re)emerging pathogens

“…Wet markets also act as important nexuses for local farmers and producers, even if such markets are themselves in the hands of state-owned or private companies (Si et al, 2016). Beyond their socioeconomic value, research has highlighted how supermarkets do not replace wet markets: rather, markets have an important cultural value that is enacted through the experience of visiting itself, such as interacting with vendors (Si et al, 2019). Additionally, although intense focus in the wake of the pandemic has been put on wet markets as a purely Chinese phenomenon, wet markets can in fact be found all over the worldalbeit within differential sociocultural contexts that may impinge on pathogen emergence.…”

China’s changing food system: top-down and bottom-up forces in food system transformations

“…The other four articles in this issue collectively sketch out changes and innovations within the food supply chain, particularly in response to the mounting food safety crisis. Among these articles, Si, Scott, and McCordic (2019) is different from the other three, with its specific focus on urban residents' use of various food sources. The article finds that the expansion of supermarkets has not challenged the dominance of traditional food outlets (that is, wet markets) in fresh produce and meat retailing.…”

“…In contrast to Si, Scott and McCordic's (2019) study of conventional food outlets, the other three articles investigate alternative food innovations and responses to food safety crises from diverse analytical perspectives. Chen and Tan (2019) focus on community supported agriculture, an alternative food network that has emerged across China in the past decade or so.…”

“…The eight articles in this collection make critical contributions to the scholarship of agrifood studies, particularly the political economy of food production and consumption. There has been little research to date on the important issue of the relationship between "virtual land imports" and land conversion , food sovereignty discourses (Gaudreau 2019), competing relationships between rural social classes (Huang 2019), changing roles of local government in greening food production (Qiao et al 2019), consumer channels of food access beyond food retail outlets (Si, Scott, and McCordic 2019), the role of social media platforms in community supported agriculture development (Chen and Tan 2019) and the "self-protection" movements (of informal economies of clean food) among farmers and consumers (Lin et al 2019;Zhang and Qi 2019).…”