XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

699

Food Regime Analysis in an Asian Context

RC40 Sociology of Agriculture and Food (host committee)

Language: English

This session aims to develop political economy approaches/frameworks in order to open up wider regional food issues in Asia and the Pacific. The session has a particular focus on Asian conglomerates which have been dominant players structuring food and agriculture in Asia while collaborating with state governments in industrial and capitalist development of their home and neighbouring countries. Their relationships with Western giants (eg. so-called ABCD) are also important. The existing Food Regime framework provides a useful theoretical tool for analysing the Asian context, particularly because many Asian agri-food conglomerates developed in close association with capitalist development of nation/states in Asia. For example, Japan's zaibatsu and sogoshosha collaborated in the nation-state project of Japan, while they were deeply involved in structuring Japan's large-scale modern food industries a century ago, and still hold the dominant share in major food industries today. More recent example may be found in other Asian countries like the Charoen Pokphand group, Wilmar International, Salim group, or COFCO, to name just a few. The key question for this session is: how can Asian perspectives and cases allow us to develop better theoretical frameworks for understanding political economic and/or food regime analysis of global-scale agri-food development? Our focus is primarily on East Asia (Northeast and Southeast Asia) and Australasia (Asia-related Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific regions), but we welcome contributions from anyone working in a theoretical framework or case study that can contribute to the kinds of global-scale insights that can emerge from Asia.